


Dripping Water

by reminiscence



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Xros Wars | Digimon Fusion
Genre: Backstory, Exploitation, Gen, ffn challenge: becoming the tamer king challenge, ffn challenge: digimon novel big bang, ffn challenge: diversity writing challenge, ffn challenge: novella with prompts challenge, ffn challenge: the novella masterclass challenge, ffn challenge: the small multichapter competition, lj challenge: WIP big bang, manga-verse, self-neglect, taiki really needs to learn to take care of himself, word count: 20000-49999 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-12 07:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 29,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11732676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reminiscence/pseuds/reminiscence
Summary: When the code crown for Corridor Zone falls into their hands, Team Xros Heart is accidentally led home. Do they go back? Or do they stay? Also, Shoutmon may be seeing things, but he swears Taiki has more injuries now than he got in the Digital World.





	1. new lens (Shoutmon)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the  
> Digimon Novel Big Bang  
> WIP Big Bang 2018  
> Novella Masterclass Challenge, #8 – not-so-secret Santa (title and summary provided by Aiko Isari)  
> Novella with Prompts Challenge, prompt: #2 – angle  
> Diversity Writing Challenge, j31 – write about abuse of any kind  
> And owing to that Diversity prompt (and the summary), I should probably say that this is not a child abuse or adult abusing child fic… or drug/alcohol abuse for that matter. Abuse has many definitions, and I think the least confronting is “the improper use of something”. Taiki’s habit of helping anyone in need is something very open to abuse to self and/or by others (particularly since I recently watched the Fate series and Shirou Emiya…), and is something that’s been explored in the Digimon Xros Wars series, both anime and manga. How far I take that is yet to be determined, but considering the potential implications of that prompt (and Aiko’s summary), I felt that was worth explaining despite the potential spoiler.

Shoutmon didn’t like the human world. It shut him out of Taiki’s life far too often.

They’d only been there for two days and the first was spent in an almost mad daze. The digimon stayed out of the Xros Loader until a crowd spawned and Zenjirou rushed them back, talking a mile a minute about his nephews in costumes and then making a big deal about how they’d “run off”.

It left the Digimon terribly confused, until Akari and Taiki had collected their wits about them and told them that talking creatures that weren’t humans or on a computer or television screen did not exist and the logistics of showing it did would be a nightmare. If that even was a good idea. Humans hadn’t really left space alone after discovering it, after all. Three Generals in the Digital World was chaotic enough.

In any case, they returned to the Xros Loader, and the three children moved from one odd and human-filled place to the next and talking in a flurry until the sky was dark, and then they split up.

Shoutmon went with Taiki. Of course he did. But even when Taiki whispered this next building was his home, they were told to stay inside the Xros Loader.

Taiki’s attempts at explaining the Digital World didn’t go terribly well, and so the order stood. So the digimon got well acquainted with Taiki’s bedside drawer, just like they acquainted themselves with his pocket.

That was day one.

And day two was even quieter, as Taiki gave them a quick explanation about school and how he wouldn’t be able to talk to them there or even carry his Xros Loader on his person, and then the device was tucked away in his book bag and off he went. And through the canvas material, the digimon talked about sensible and insensible things as Taiki went on with a part of his life so far away from them all.

None of them asked the question burning in their minds. When would they go back, if at all.

Day three was the same as the second day. So was Thursday, and the days were so long and so tiring that they only talked to Zenjirou on the phone. Akari they had lunch with, and that was one of the few times they could crawl out of the bag and stare at the sky as the Xros Loader lay between the pair on the grass.

At least Taiki and Akari could hear their voices like that, and they could hear them. It would have been even more unbearable otherwise.

But that was the life of human children like them. To go to school: go to classes, eat lunch under the sun, and then attend more classes in the afternoon. Then do after school activities and get home when the sun was going down with Akari walking them half-way, then eating dinner with Taiki’s mother before Taiki escaped to his room with snacks and finally let them out.

.

Thursday night came after three full days of school and Shoutmon stared at Taiki suspiciously.

It was hard to keep an eye on him during the day, and harder still to keep eyes on Akari (and downright impossible to keep eyes on Zenjirou), but Akari looked far perkier than Taiki did. And considering the Digital World, that was really saying something.

Especially since all the bruises and scrapes from their fight in the Corridor Zone should have faded away by then.

And then Taiki winced as he sat on his desk chair, and alarm bells went off in Shoutmon’s head. ‘Are you okay?’

                ‘Sure.’ Taiki’s tired face broke into a smile. ‘Just got used to the Digital World, I guess.’ He spilled his books on his desk. Shoutmon didn’t try to understand them. He couldn’t read Japanese. Or that one Akari had said was in English. He couldn’t even tell it apart from the others.

Wisemon might have been able to, but Wisemon didn’t come out of the Xros Loader even on the best of days. It wasn’t really important, Shoutmon supposed. It wasn’t like they could help Taiki with his homework if they could recognise one book from another.

But maybe Wisemon could teach them to read human language. That would be a good way to kill time (in a useful way) until they got to Saturday.

And the digimon had agreed to the week break because they’d seen how much the children had missed this world, and how off-footed they’d often been. They’d been dragged away from this, after all. What was wrong with giving them a little back? And the children had said their school days were busy. But Saturdays were half days, and Sundays were off, and Mondays were usually school but the Monday they’d arrived in the Digital World had been Marine Day and a Public Holiday and the digimon had wound up a little muddled with the explanation because they didn’t have calendars per say and certainly no need for things like weeks. Days were important, but easily measured by the sun or lack thereof. Seasons were important but mapped by the weather. Years were important and judged by how time came in a full circle. Weeks and months weren’t quite as important.

Humans had them though, and weird rules for telling them apart. Seven days were a week and a month had anywhere from twenty eight to thirty one days, depending on which month in particular it was. A year had three hundred and sixty-five (or three hundred and sixty-six every four years, which was another mind-boggling thing) but started and ended at different times depending on where in the world or for what purpose.

All unnecessarily confusing, in Shoutmon’s opinion. But what he really needed to know was that they were in the middle of a month called July, Marine Day was an exception to the usual five and half days of school and one and a half days of break school weeks, and there was a holiday coming up in six days which meant no school at all.

And that was all he’d really learned in three days and four nights. And that school was very very exhausting, and the work that went towards it never really ended, even when Taiki was sitting at his desk after dinner. Because there was that thing called study where he poured over his books some more, and then went to bed after Shoutmon had pinched himself enough times to need the Xros Loader to repair his skin.

He was almost positive he was going to fall asleep tonight before Taiki even with pinching himself as much as he did. It wasn’t as effective as whatever thermos Taiki was keeping on his desk anyway.

Actually, there was an idea…

                ‘Taiki?’ he asked, when Taiki paused in his scribbling to pour himself another cup. ‘What’s that?’

                ‘This?’ Taiki blinked at his drink. ‘It’s coffee. Got lots of caffeine, so good for late night study though the taste is a bit… acquired.’

                ‘Not like Digi-noir?’ Aside from Digi-noir, everything in the Digital World seemed to taste the same so that was their base of comparison. Though he could build a palate based on human food if he could figure out what they were.

Two weeks was what Taiki and Akari and Zenjirou had cried, before throwing themselves back into their normal life. Something about exams they couldn’t afford to do poorly on, especially this year, and new schools next year, and it quite frankly went over the digimons’ heads but it was a well earned break for them. Two weeks was fourteen days and nights (or less, since the two weeks was more an estimate) and Wisemon had already assured them that the progress of time was arrested with as many Code Crowns as Xros Heart had in its possession now in the human world.

He had also assured them this _was_ the human world, and not some sort of copy created by the Code Crown of Corridor Zone. But nobody could blame their scepticism. Taiki and his friends might’ve come from another world, but the Digital World was all they Digimon had known.

And they weren’t doing a terribly good job of getting to know the human world, really. But two weeks was what they’d promised, and was it really any trouble for them, after the time and effort the children had sacrificed for them?

Of course it wasn’t. Even if it meant Shoutmon (and the others) had to look for a patience they didn’t know they had. And also…

                ‘Want to try?’ Taiki had drained his cup, and refilled it.

Shoutmon accepted the offer. ‘Anyone else want some too?’

Snores greeted him. They were asleep already. _What a show of loyalty, guys._ But that was what they were there to do: rest up and let the children study and do their exams, and then decide what to do after that.

Because even if this was Taiki’s home, Shoutmon needed his help.

And even if he didn’t throw himself at the other’s feet to beg, he was sure Taiki would go with him, again, to the Digital World.

But for now, it was Taiki who needed the help. Even if the help was just peace and quiet to study, and company as the night dragged on. And watching out for how he winced uncomfortably every time he shifted…

                ‘Is the chair uncomfortable?’ he blurted out.

                ‘Huh?’ Taiki blinked owlishly at him in the lamp light. ‘Nah. I’ve just been at this too long.’

He worked longer anyway, until he was yawning and rubbing his eyes, and then he went to bed.

Maybe it was the coffee, but this time Shoutmon was awake enough to see the discoloured skin when Taiki switched out his shirt for a pyjama top.


	2. old moulds (Miyuki)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since Taiki's mother is unnamed, I'm called her Miyuki here. And at the moment I'm still working out whether I'm going to wind up with all six POVs or not… (Taiki's not one of them, btw). I may, but that means each character's getting an average of three chapters, so we'll see what happens. Next chapter's either Akari or Zenjirou, in any case.
> 
> This chapter's using prompt #001 – reading.

Something had changed after Marine Day with Taiki, Miyuki thought. And with Akari too. There was a sudden flurry of study, as though they’d forgotten all about their exams – and while her son would might such a thing in the whirlwind of assisting club teams, Akari would be quick to remind him.

Maybe it was their new friend from their Marine Day adventure, the one that had Taiki sprouting some story about monsters and another world that had made her laugh at the time… but now she recalled how odd that was, because Taiki and Akari were both quite pragmatic and didn’t care very much for fantasy.

Neither did Tsurugi-kun, for what little Miyuki knew of her – but he’d fit seamlessly into her son’s life and she had no concerns about him.

In truth, she didn’t have any new concerns at all. There was just a change she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Taiki always did his studying late at night and it was always with coffee or fruit or sport juices, because he was usually helping out at sports clubs in the afternoons. And he often came up more banged than she preferred and always more tired than she preferred – but at least there was Akari to look out for him, to make sure he didn’t injure himself in any way. Aside from that… what else could she do? She couldn’t forbid him from assisting the sports clubs. She couldn’t withhold the extra drinks in the hopes that Taiki will listen to his body a little more (because that method was just as likely to land him in the hospital as stopping him a little earlier). She could only support him in her own way, and that meant high calorie meals to balance out all the energy her burned, making sure both he and Akari were well supplied with sugar and electrolytes when they were out of her reach. And maybe she did over-indulge him, but sometimes it took somebody else’s touch and Taiki was still waiting for that.

Well, as long as he didn’t get into anything dangerous, anyway. In that sense Akari, who had enough younger brothers to be on hyper-alert, was a godsend. Stopping Taiki from doing things was another matter, but she kept a sharp eye and Miyuki could breathe a little easier knowing that Akari knew where to draw the line and wouldn’t let Taiki inch a toe over it.

It was Taiki who’d pushed that line back further than either of them were comfortable with, but that was their compromise, she supposed. And that was all a part of parenting, and friendships too. Any relationship, really.

Even if, sometimes, she wished she hadn’t agreed to some compromises. She hadn’t gotten a call from a hospital yet and that was a blessing in itself but that didn’t mean it was healthy or good for her heart for Taiki to be pushing himself to the point of collapsing. And then he’d come home and do his schoolwork until late at night, and Miyuki wound wonder if trading this sort of thing in for the typical teenager problems would be a worthwhile trade or not.

That part hasn’t changed, but there’s a fragile balance in there somewhere and it’s still maintained. Zenjirou Tsurugi doesn’t shift it either way – at least not now. And, from Miyuki’s perspective, that’s one more person to keep an eye on Taiki, and one more person he could learn selfishness with, and after he’d been friendly and yet had only Akari for a friend for so long…

But he’d still go to school and help out with the clubs approaching their final competitions, and then study for exams and squeeze hanging out with his friends somewhere in there and it made her, an adult’s, head spin sometimes. And she should put a stop to it, somehow. Or his body would put a stop to it.

It was just a matter of time, really.

Maybe it was the part of her who didn’t want to say “no” to her child when there wasn’t a clear line in the sand to be drawn.

.

Taiki was up early on Sunday.

That wasn’t unusual, per say. Sometimes, he slept in. Sometimes, he didn’t.

What was odd was that he seemed to have company in his room before Miyuki was quite out of bed herself. He was talking to someone, anyway, and Miyuki could hear a voice – male – talking back as well. Was it Tsurugi-kun?

But only Taiki emerged from his bedroom for breakfast. ‘Is Tsurugi-kun over?’ she asked, over the soft sizzle of pancakes. ‘I didn’t hear him come on.’ Or leave, for that matter.

He blinked at her slowly, before an “ah” slipped from his lips. ‘That… nobody’s over.’

                ‘I thought I heard you talking to someone,’ she said, confused. It was pretty hard to mistake the sound of her son’s voice.

He put an odd-looking device on the table. It seemed to be switched off for the moment. A toy of some sort? A walkie-talkie? It seemed like an odd thing to have when he already had a mobile phone, but maybe it worked out cheaper than a pre-paid plan. ‘They’re here,’ said Taiki, and that was an odd way of phrasing it. One didn’t typically say the person on the other end of the line was, in fact, inside the line.

But Taiki seemed to have worded it like that deliberately.

What was it that Taiki felt he couldn’t explain to her in words?

For a moment, she was reminded of the tale he’d told a week ago – but she brushed it off. It had been an odd day, Marine Day, with how a car had rammed into the tenth floor of a skyscraper without touching the other nine, amongst other things. That her practical Taiki was telling her a fictional tale was another odd thing, but he had made a new friend that day so she’d just assumed it was related to that.

Though she could, in passing, wish Taiki was the sort who could settle down with a book he wasn’t studying out of.

                ‘What’s the plan for today?’ she asked, dismissing the thoughts. Like the story, she wasn’t quite sure where that odd-looking device had come from, but Taiki could, within reason, do what he liked with his allowance.

                ‘Judo practice, and then meeting up with Zenjirou and Akari.’ Taiki chewed his pancakes slowly. ‘We’ll study, mostly.’

                ‘Exams are soon,’ she agreed, sympathetic. ‘You’re taking breaks?’

                ‘Judo is a break,’ Taiki replied, after a pause.

They both knew it wasn’t, though most of the time Taiki managed to convince himself it was.

.

Taiki left and the house seemed even emptier than before. Miyuki wasn’t sure why that was, because her husband came home once every three months or so, and thus it was fairly typical for there to be only her or Taiki or even neither of them at home. Except it seemed to echo strangely, like Taiki had had friends over (which was another oddity, because it was usually only Akari, and now recently Tsurugi-kun) and he’d taken them all with him.

Maybe that new device of his had some background noise she hadn’t picked up on. Her ears were almost ringing in the silence. Or maybe she was having one of those rare bouts of loneliness, when Taiki seemed to take a little too much after his father and she wished he’d spend a little more time at home instead of running off after other people…

She sighed and started on the dishes. That was silly of her, because it was her fault, not her husband’s, that Taiki had started helping everyone in trouble like he did. Because he’d come to her, crying, that day, and she’d done what any mother would do and tried to comfort him and show him how to become stronger for it all…

But that was the power of retrospection. She’d misspoken to a child who’d taken her words too literally and when silence had brought his tears, and now the sentiment was practically a gospel he abided by. She wondered if he remembered her exact words (because she didn’t), or even that she’d been the one to speak them. It didn’t matter anyway. Taiki had made a decision that defined the axis of his life from that point, and only something just as dramatic was going to tilt it anew. Maybe he would learn balance. Maybe he had found his balance and it was simply maternal anxiety on her part. Or maybe something _would_ happen to tilt that axis anew and, if it did, she could only hope it be something good and that it leads to something better…

And she wondered why she worried _now_. It wasn’t like she had any new tangible concerns, since Marine Day. There was just something: an odd feeling. She was missing at least one piece of the puzzle and it was a crucial piece, but where would she find it?


	3. distant dreams (Zenjirou)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's using prompt #004 - milky.

Sunday was supposed to be a day to sleep in, Zenjirou thought. But all three of them were sprawled on his bedroom floor by ten. That wasn't ridiculously early for a Sunday, in his books, but it wasn't particularly late either. Especially since Taiki and Akari had to get to him first.

The digimon were lucky, not having to worry about school or, really, any responsibilities in this world.

On the other hand, that gave them more time to worry about the state of their own world.

How much longer till exams? A week and a half, and then their own brains wouldn't be cramped with nonsensical facts, a good deal they'd never look at again. It was pretty selfish of them; he knew that. Even now, they were studying, and the digimon did whatever they always did inside the Xros Loader.

He couldn't focus on it, though. He's never been the studious type, though he's hardly the typical jock who's flunking school. He was heading for a sport's scholarship anyway. He was heading for a life of competition, and then maybe coaching once that was done.

Taiki had once offhandedly mentioned that his father was a sport's trainer. Zenjirou wondered if that was why he picked things up so quickly. Because it hurt, having lost to an amateur. It hurt that an amateur had gotten so good so quickly. But then again, it was Taiki who'd picked up being a General with ease, who'd grappled with Kiriha and Nene like he wasn't lacking a whole two months of experience, and who didn't even bat an eyelash when he'd switched from helping sports teams and kids getting picked on to helping digimon in a war-torn world.

He was jealous and grateful all in one. He didn't exactly sign up for the digital world, and he wasn't signing up to be a General either (though he would, if it helped anything). But he'd made friends there, and not just Taiki and Akari. He'd become committed to something. It wasn't a dream, per say, but one couldn't singlehandedly chase after dreams. And he'd learnt some things along the way, as well.

His practice kendo stick leaned against the wall, now, by his desk.

He straightened up, stretching. 'Let's have a break. Taiki, spar with me some?'

'Sure,' Taiki replied, before Akari could interrupt.

That didn't stop her from lecturing them both as they went outside. 'Take it easy! Taiki promised the judo club he'd help them out after lunch, and that's not to mention how you've been running around since elementary school!'

'That's a bit of an exaggeration, Akari,' Taiki replied, though Zenjirou played close attention because their time in the digital world had been enough to tell him that Taiki tended to severely underestimate his stamina. 'I doubt it's possible to run more than three days without sleep. Not to mention the other stuff.'

'You know I don't mean literally,' she sighed. 'But really. You're sore. You're tired – though, honestly, you're always tired. And you never rest enough. Like the world will fall apart if you're not doing something.'

Taiki frowned at her. 'Inaction is not an excuse.'

They'd had this argument before, it looked like. But not in front of Zenjirou. He watched them both: the tight expression on Akari's face, and the impatience on Taiki's like he thought he still wasn't doing enough.

Finally, Akari sighed. 'Go on, then. You know I'll watch out for you.'

And maybe that was the problem, Zenjirou thought as he followed Taiki into the backyard. Because Taiki knew there were others to pull him back if he fell, he could push himself to the very edge. But people weren't machines. They couldn't calculate to that pinpoint accuracy. They could miss, and he'd tumble off the cliff. Or they'd pull him back too often and he'd never actually reach the edge and somebody else could suffer for it.

In the digital world, that could mean somebody else's sacrifice, or the loss of a piece of the code crown, or worse, the world. In the human world, it meant something else. Sure, Taiki was the kind of person to leave into traffic to save a cat, but helping out sport clubs wasn't interfering with life or death situations. For some of them, it was just a way to make friends and commit to something other than studying while at school. For others, it was a pathway to a longer and larger dream.

Like he who wanted to be a master one day. It was important for them to train and win and build up reputations, whether that be part of a team or alone, or both of those things. But that was them. And maybe that was why Taiki chose to help. He did say he hadn't any definite plans for the future himself. And he'd liked Shoutmon's dream to unite the digital world under a peaceful banner and so he'd helped. There wasn't anything wrong with that?

Except when he overworked himself, right? Except when he pushed himself too far and collapsed, and everyone else buzzed around with worry niggling at them, and a lack of understanding as to why, as to what's so urgent…

'We don't have to…' Zenjirou said awkwardly, but even before the words were out of his mouth, he knew they'd do no good. They were too weak.

'It's your dream to be a master swordsman, isn't it?' Taiki replied. And, just like that, the conversation was over.

.

Taiki and Akari left together after lunch. Zenjirou's mother commented on how cute a couple they made, except they weren't really a couple. Akari had commented, at some point, that Taiki was like her fifth little brother (or first, really, since he was older than all her blood-related brothers).

Zenjirou had been tempted to go along, but in the end he didn't. He did need to study, after all. It was the whole reason they'd delayed finding a way back to the digital world.

The digimon had been quiet in the Xros Loader all morning. How did they feel, cooped up in there, he wondered? He should've told Taiki to let the digimon out. Except his parents were home, and they would have had a job explaining that.

Somewhere else, then. Somewhere quiet. School would be pretty empty on a Sunday, except for whatever clubs had requested access. It was too bad they weren't to a different school.

Maybe Taiki had let the digimon out into one of the empty classrooms while he helped out with the club.  _Judo, huh,_ he thought. Taiki really did dabble in a lot of different sports. That helped him strategise, probably. He had all that experience to draw upon… and yet, frantically learning new styles didn't make him an expert at any of them. He was an all-rounder, instead: jack of all trades, master of none.

He wondered what sort of job Taiki would wind up in, in the end. A sports trainer like his father? He could sort of see that happening. Or maybe he'd go into the police force or be a paramedic… Zenjirou was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to stomach being a paramedic himself. He didn't do too well with blood or heights, after all.

And that made him wonder what sort of things Taiki didn't do well with. Because everyone had weaknesses as well as strengths, but Taiki portrayed himself as a solid well-rounded person, so it was hard to spot either of those things. His strategic ability was probably a strength, one he'd honed by dabbling in various things. His inability to recognise his own limits… was that a weakness? Or was it a strength? Or both, or neither… he didn't really know. It all depended on that fine balance they danced on, he supposed. It would be different if no-one looked out for Taiki, but Akari did.

He did too, didn't he? In a different way to Akari, of course. She watched from afar and swooped in when he fell. He could take a bit of the workload from Taiki, so he didn't have to do as much. In the digital world, that was easier. Everything was so direct: they had the enemy they were fighting, and the army to fight them with. Here, they were chasing more intangible things: dreams, aspirations, a future that was still pretty far away from them except they were all children and impatient…

Didn't Akari say something about the kendo club on Monday after school? He'd never actually been to their school before… but why not. Practicing with another school's club would give him more experience, and it wasn't like his school was playing theirs again this year. Taiki had already knocked them out of the running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taiki says three days, because that's thought to be the limit of how long a human can stay awake for without some semblance of sleep. Of course, there's other practicalities like eating and toileting, but having read The Long Walk by Stephen King, those things can be kind of be done on the go… Anyway, practically the barriers are energy (food, sleep), hydration, lactic acid buildup in the muscles (which is what causes cramps and stuff…) and the psychological side of things are all potential barriers. I think the record is 80hrs without sleep, but idk if there were other sorts of breaks in there or not.
> 
> And Zenjirou took this chapter and ran away with it. Oh well; it is going somewhere, just not where I thought it would. And this means Akari's got the next chapter. Now when is Kiriha going to show up…


	4. looking over (Akari)

Monday had Akari’s eyelids glued together in exhaustion. She’d spent the entire day with Taiki, and half of that with Zenjirou as well, and they’d alternated between studying, sparring and studying some more. And then she’d come home to her little brothers and they’d played shooting games until their mother had sent them all to bed.

It felt odd, having the digimon quiet in the Xros Loader while they worked. It felt odd being back in the real world, in general, even if this was their home. Maybe it was because they’d left things unfinished. Maybe it was because things were clearer, then. They had enemies, and allies, and something to work towards but now she felt like she was back to chasing her tail and that was the worst.

Though, technically, she was chasing Taiki’s tail and not her own.

Sighing, she dragged herself out of bed. Sometimes, she thought the western schools that had two days off instead of just a day and a half had it right. The start of the new school week had come too early and next week, with exams, would be worse.

She wished Taiki would slow down, sometimes only so she could slow down as well, but it hadn’t happened last year and she doubted it would happen now. And on top of the usual things, they had the digital world and the digimon in Taiki’s Xros Loader to think about. Where they looking for a way back by themselves, while the humans focused on their exams? Or were they impatiently waiting until the exams were done? Did they even understand about the structure of the human world, or were they just going along with things. Or would their fragile peace fall apart when impatience won?

They should explain more, she thought. Show them more. Or perhaps they’d already seen more with Taiki, when he studied late into the night and drank more coffee and sugary drinks than was healthy. And they had gone out for Marine Day, before splitting up and heading to their respective homes. And Taiki did let them loose in an empty classroom so they could get some fresh air and watch from the windows.

Honestly, she wouldn’t be surprised to catch some of them sneaking around the school, but there hadn’t been any dramas so far.

No digimon-related dramas, anyway. She yawned again, quickly dressed and took off with the breakfasts and lunches her mother had packed the night before. She’d go to Taiki’s house, usually, but this morning she knew he’d been up for a while already, peddling down the streets and poking newspapers into fences for a classmate who’d sprained his ankle on Friday.

Honestly, with how close it was to exams, Akari couldn’t help but wonder if he’d faked that sprain to get out of work, and then Taiki had kindly volunteered to add even more work onto his own plate… And it wasn’t like Taiki would get the money, or take it if it was offered. His schoolwork wasn’t suffering for it yet, but how long would it be before the exhaustion caught up? Or maybe it just wasn’t obvious; teachers did ease up on assignments when exams were close.

She felt bad for the thought. It wasn’t like she wanted Taiki to fail his exams, or get hurt. But how was he balancing everything? Her mind was so crowded with things and she didn’t have as much on her plate as he did. And part of her load was keeping up with his.

She snorted to herself as she jogged to school. Well, there was an easy way to rectify that but she wouldn’t do it. She’d made that decision when she adopted Taiki as another little brother and she was going to stick by it. Though she really hoped her other four brothers didn’t pile as much onto their plates. She wouldn’t be able to keep up with it all!

There were students milling around in the yard when she arrived, and it didn’t take long to spot Taiki playing soccer with a few classmates.

She sighed. ‘Taiki!’ she yelled. ‘Get over here right now!’

At least he came without too much of a fuss. But really, she grumbled to herself, what was he thinking playing around like that after cycling for an hour, and with no breakfast on top of that. He’d probably had milk or a protein shake or something, but that wasn’t a substitute for a proper meal.

Akari thrust the extra box her mother had prepared into his chest. ‘Eat,’ she ordered.

                ‘’kaa-san packed me –‘

                ‘And with all the running around you do, some extra won’t hurt. I’m sure you’ve got the appetite for it.’

She was wrong. Taiki’s bento box went untouched. He didn’t even finish all of hers, and she stared at the contents leftover as she packed them away in her locker. It wasn’t any more than usual, and they both had pretty healthy appetites. They could have managed three boxes between them. They should definitely have finished their own ones, and her mother hadn’t overpacked them.

Still, Taiki ate his own lunch, and he didn’t finish that either. ‘I’ll finish it after school,’ he shrugged, unconcerned.

She frowned at the leftover contents, and the extra bentos in her locker. And she frowned again when Taiki dove straight into kendo practice without stopping by her locker (and she’d only discovered that after waiting for him for a whole ten minutes after the bell).

He was in the gym, of course. To her surprise, though, Zenjirou was there too, watching one of the younger members go through a kata and barking corrections at every step. As she watched him though, it made sense. Zenjirou had been doing kendo for years. He had experience that Taiki simply couldn’t make up for.

And yet, Taiki had defeated Zenjirou in that tournament. Experience wasn’t everything, and they’d both seen how it had frustrated him. He’d interrupted their Marine Day, after all, before the digimon had shown up to completely derail their plans. And now…

Zenjirou and Taiki were talking about something. Zenjirou in particular was animated, waving his hands and gesturing. Taiki was just nodding along, and finally, they broke away and split the group. ‘Three minute spars,’ Zenjirou called, taking out his phone to time. ‘Then rotate.’

Ah, Akari thought. That’d be tricky, if they were rotating without breaks. Everybody sparred differently, after all. But maybe that was the idea. It promoted flexibility: changing between strategies and being used to the fluidity of someone experienced and confident enough to shift between one strategy and the next. Because sticking to the same strategy wouldn’t win them everything. If they won the first match, their opponent would know how to counter for the next one.

It made her wonder what the outcome of the next match between Taiki and Zenjirou would be. It was an effective strategy for someone new to a field: to adapt a lesser known or lesser utilised strategy. But Zenjirou had been exposed to Taiki’s fighting style several times since then.

And then, suddenly, Taiki and Zenjirou were paired up and she watched them live.

She was right. Zenjirou did know how to counter Taiki’s moves, by now. And he was countering them, and even though Taiki was quick on his feet (and quick at coming up with new strategies too), he simply didn’t have the diversity in his repertoire that Zenjirou had, or the diversity of the other members of the kendo club.

He was still holding his own, though, and most people wouldn’t be able to do that. He’d beaten two of the three players he’d played so far, though it looked like Zenjirou would be winning this time.

The three minutes dragged on. Their practice swords smack together and spring apart, until finally Taiki lost his grip on his and it went rolling away. ‘Sorry,’ he panted, chasing after it.

She saw his eyes lose focus when he bent over, and had the pillow ready to catch him.

The kendo team and Zenjirou hustled around. ‘He should know better than to bend over quickly by now,’ she sighed, as they helped Taiki over to the bench. He mumbled a protest, not quite unconscious. ‘I’m fine,’ he managed, once he was sitting and had drunk some of his fruit juice. ‘Just a bit dizzy.’

                ‘You overdid it,’ Akari scolded. ‘And you didn’t eat properly today at that.’

It probably wouldn’t stick though. It never did, and she didn’t exactly want something dramatic happening to change that…

Did she see a flash of red by the door? She blinked, but it was gone.

 


	5. clarity in dreams (Shoutmon)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt for this chapter is #9 - reflect

Taiki spent a lot of time with a lot of different people, Shoutmon realised. There were too many voices and names to keep track of – except Wisemon, who took notes on everything. Akari’s voice was there intermittently, and Taiki’s mother, and his homeroom teacher. They were the three main ones, and then others, like Zenjirou and innumerable classmates, who flitted in and out.

Inside the Xros Loader, the digimon talked, or listened, or rested, or did their own things. Most of them trained at some point or either. Wisemon researched, and they rotated through helping him. Ballistamon was roped in more often than not. Something to do with the speakers, Shoutmon understood. Receiving sound, otherwise his microphone would’ve been useful too.

But no. Shoutmon dedicated himself to keeping an ear out for Taiki, instead. And when he was out of the Xros Loader, keeping an eye on him as well.

Taiki who was too busy with too many different people to keep track of it all.

Sometimes, he’d let them out in an empty classroom. Always, he’d let them out in his bedroom when he was home. Often, they’d fall asleep (except for Shoutmon) as he studied well into the night. Sometimes, they fell asleep waiting for him to come back upstairs after dinner.

In the classroom, they stretched their legs. Cutemon and Dondokomon climbed every surface and touched every instrument they could find… which led to a mess when they’d been let loose in the art room. Sometimes, they snuck out. Always, they were wary of being seen by others. Taiki and the others had explained how they’d only cause panic if they were seen and Dondokomon had caused his fair share already, scaring a pair of girls the day after they’d arrived from the digital world.

Still, Shoutmon wandered out of the classroom more often than not, looking for Taiki. He was in the gym, usually, or out on the courts. He was always moving, too, except when he was studying. He was always moving in the digital world, as well. If it wasn’t his body moving, it was his mind.

Most kids his age relaxed under trees or on benches or giggled on their way home after school. He’d watch them from the windows for a little while, sometimes. But Taiki wasn’t most people. Even when he walked home with Akari, he’d be having serious conversations. Something about food was the most recent one… and Shoutmon could sympathise. After leaving the village, they’d alternate between being too empty and being too full and it was hard to remember what a normal amount was. Except that hadn’t been what Akari had complained about. Something about leaving food in the bento box?

A bento box was what Taiki’s mother packed his lunch in for him, it sounded like. Taiki gave them one between them, sometimes. But usually, it was something in a packet instead. It probably took too long to prepare, or maybe they didn’t have enough boxes. Or maybe Taiki simply couldn’t explain to his mother why he’d need so many lunches packed… and so many dinners.

And humans needed to pay for things, too. Shoutmon wondered how far Taiki’s allowance would stretch. Was it a problem, they being in this world? They were a distraction to their exams, to their normal school life, to… what? Their peace? Hadn’t Akari said something about a car driving into the tenth floor of a building? The digital world’s troubles were affecting this one as well. That was undeniable. Taiki becoming their General would save both of their worlds. But they hadn’t really thought about what sort of life they’d borrowed him from, what sort of life they’d borrowed Akari and Zenjirou from…

It certainly wasn’t the sort of life they were used to. So many expectations. So many rules… or perhaps they were guidelines, instead. They hardly complained. Maybe about the amount of homework, or study, or the fact that exams were approaching, but they didn’t complain about going to school five and a half days out of seven, or about eating three meals a day and sleeping when the sky was black and being awake when it was blue and being home before dark. Of course, there were expectations in the digital world as well, but it was… different. More relaxed. More free. Maybe more simple, as well. Because, as odd as it was to think, Taiki had only two main goals in the digital world: save the digital world (and that was in tandem with making him the king), and getting himself, Akari and Zenjirou home.

Now he had exams and study and helping with various things that didn’t seem related to one big umbrella thing like in the digital world. Right now, he was helping in kendo, the one sport they knew a little about because Zenjirou had talked their ears off before. Kendo in the gym. He knew where the gym was; he’d found it looking for Taiki before.

And there it was again. Except Taiki was walking unsteadily to the bench, with Akari and Zenjirou each with an arm over their shoulder.

He wanted to run there: ask what was wrong, and alternate between fussing and scolding – but the last time had seen Akari shutting him out, because he’d been too loud and… well, useless.

And, this time, there were other humans present too. He’d make more of a mess than Dondokomon, who at least looked enough like a set of drums from the music room to be mistaken as such when he wasn’t moving.

Akari and Zenjirou were there, at least.

.

Taiki didn’t slow down at all. He presumably took a time out and Akari saw him home with orders to not do the paper rounds the next morning, but Shoutmon didn’t notice anything else different. ‘Shouldn’t you rest?’ he offered, once they were in his bedroom and Taiki was arranging his study materials.

                ‘No time,’ Taiki responded. ‘The end of the year’s a busy time, you know. Everybody’s trying to pass exams and break into competitive fields and open the path to their future…’ He pulled pens out. ‘It’s the time people take a step closer to their dreams.’

                ‘What’s your dream?’ Shoutmon asked.

Taiki paused. ‘My dream? To help other people makes their dreams come true, I guess.’

Shoutmon wondered why he looked so sad when he said that. And so tired. And… ‘Aren’t dreams supposed to be selfish?’

                ‘They’re supposed to be the sort of thing you can sacrifice anything for,’ Taiki agreed. ‘But sometimes, along the way, you find things that aren’t worth sacrificing, and the dream you were chasing all along isn’t your dream.’

Shoutmon processed that. It was more than Taiki had ever mentioned about his own dreams before, and it was… what? Telling him of a dream he’d never had, or a dream he’d given up on? ‘Taiki…’ he began, before realising that, in his distraction, Taiki had started on his schoolwork.

Shoutmon watched him and tucked the comments away for another time. And he’d gotten good at watching Taiki. He watched closer now because not much else changed. It wasn’t like the digital world where everything was dynamic. Taiki would shift slightly, or he’d turn a page, or he’d be scrawling notes in his notebook or picking up his calculator and then setting it back down again, or he’d be rubbing his brow or his eyes that looked more and more like somebody had punched him (though he said they hadn’t) or pouring coffee into a cup…

                ‘Why is it worth it?’ Shoutmon asked, finally.

He knew why his dream was worth the fighting. Because their world was being ripped apart. Because the smiles that their village was named after were too few and far between now, and it would only get worse with Bagramon’s rule. Because he knew there’d be no happiness for them if they lost, and so they had to fight, and win. And they’d called out to another world to find a General that would help them do just that.

And they’d found Taiki, and with him came Zenjirou and Akari as well. And Taiki had been perfect, except when he’d collapsed from overworking himself and, then, they’d been working together for the same thing.

Now they were doing so little, and Taiki was doing so much.

                ‘Why is it worth it?’ he repeated.

                ‘Why is what worth it?’ Taiki asked, spinning around so he straddled the chair instead. ‘Studying?’ Without waiting for an answer, he continued: ‘Well, it’s compulsory up to tenth grade, and even beyond that the choice of jobs are limited without some academics. Though the other option is to take up an apprenticeship and learn your trade on the job.’

                ‘That’s about your job,’ Shoutmon said, after another pause. ‘I meant your wanting to help everyone you can. You called that your dream.’

                ‘Ah.’ Taiki turned back to his desk… which prompted another red flag in Shoutmon’s mind. ‘Somebody said once that not everyone in the world can make their dreams come true… because all dreams come with a price. Sometimes, that person pays, themselves. Sometimes, it’s paid by other people. And I… don’t want somebody else paying because of me again.’


	6. slipping figure (Akari)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt for this chapter is #14 - apnoea

Taiki looked like he hadn’t slept well at all, and that was making things go from bad to worse in Akari’s opinion.

She was surprised his mother hadn’t tried to keep him at all. Maybe she had. Or maybe she’d thought it was too close to exam time to stay home.

She really hoped he hadn’t been doing those paper rounds too. Except when she found him, he was locking up his bike and he wouldn’t have had that otherwise.

                ‘Taiki,’ she pleaded. ‘You look terrible. Seriously.’

He laughed, surprised. ‘You’ve never said that before,’ he commented. ‘Or maybe you have, once or twice…’

                ‘I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.’ Akari hovered, as close as she could manage without touching him directly. ‘Seriously, you’re paler than normal overtiredness and you’ve got bags under your eyes the colour of DarkKnightmon’s armour.’

He touched the dark-coloured skin beneath his eyes. ‘It’s just a busy time,’ he sighed. ‘It’s always busy in exam season.’

                ‘It is,’ Akari agreed, ‘which is why you need to spend more time on yourself and less on other people.’

                ‘I do it for me,’ Taiki protested.

Which Akari probably knew better than anyone, except Taiki’s mother. But still… ‘You’re selflessly selfish, you know. And that’s why I can’t leave you alone.’

They were silent for a bit after that, just walking. ‘I know,’ Taiki said finally. ‘I couldn’t do it without you looking out for me. Or without ‘kaa-san.’

                ‘Sometimes I wish I hadn’t enabled you,’ Akari admitted. ‘But it’s too late now. I can’t leave you alone any more than you can leave everybody else.’

                ‘No,’ Taiki agreed. ‘I’m sorry; it’s just…’

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

It didn’t change the fact that he was overworking himself and Akari knew it. ‘Taiki…’

                ‘Hmm?’

                ‘Don’t overdo it.’

                ‘I won’t,’ Taiki promised.

But Akari knew their definitions of overdoing were different, because in her opinion, he’d already overdone it.

.

They ate breakfast together. And lunch together. And Taiki finished neither of them. ‘I’m full from fruit juice,’ he laughed, over Wednesday’s lunch. And he’d shown her the large bottle he was keeping in his desk with his books (and how had he not been caught by a teacher yet? she wondered).

It didn’t matter. Drinking fruit juice would keep his energy levels up but there was a reason humans were built to eat solid foods. ‘I think being in the digital world has spoilt your appetite,’ she commented. ‘Either that, or you’re so exhausted you’ve ruined your appetite.’

                ‘I don’t think I’m any more tired than usual,’ Taiki said thoughtfully.

                ‘You almost fainted on Monday.’

                ‘I was out for hours in the digital world.’

Akari sighed. ‘You could sound the tiniest bit concerned,’ she scolded.

                ‘It’s not a big deal.’

And, to Taiki, it wasn’t, but only because he’d seen worse.

And, really, that was what kick-started it all. Taiki was always a kind person, but after carrying the weight of another’s pain and his own guilt on his shoulders, it tended towards self-sacrificing.

How did she stop him? She didn’t know, and if his mother couldn’t manage it, what hope did she have? She was a child like him, equally shocked and equally fumbling. If an adult with an adult’s wisdom and experience couldn’t say all dreams could come true without somebody paying a price for it, then it probably wasn’t possible. And they couldn’t live under naivety forever.

It would’ve been nice if they could have, though. Where would they be? Would Taiki still be running track, or would he have found a different sport to be his niche? Would he have faced Zenjirou in that kendo tournament? Would they have found the digital world?

…well, she figured the Marine Day would’ve played out much the same, except without the soccer practice and bumping into Zenjirou. But that could’ve changed plenty. They might not have been in the right spot at the right time for Taiki to hear those digi-melodies. They might not have wound in the digital world after all.

Even in the digital world, the only thing she could do for Taiki was watch his back when it curled in, watch his feet when they began to stumble and his head when it tipped forward, dragging the rest of his body along with it. There were Generals, but they weren’t her or Zenjirou. If it had been them, they’d have worked together. Three times the fighting force might have saved the digital world by then. Or maybe it wouldn’t have. There were always too many what-ifs in the equation.

Like if Sano Tatsuya hadn’t gone from the tracks to being wheelchair bound…

.

Taiki was helping the basketball team again. And he bent to pick the ball up halfway through and wound up sitting down instead.

                ‘I just need some juice,’ he protested. And that and a bit of rest had him back in the game.

But Taiki was sweating and pale when he stepped off the court, and only the first could be brushed away. ‘Eat,’ Akari ordered, handing him his unfinished lunch box.

Taiki only managed a few mouthfuls before he was turning green instead. ‘Too much juice,’ he grimaced.

                ‘You’re literally surviving on juice,’ Akari frowned.

                ‘And coffee,’ Shoutmon piqued up from the Xros Loader.

                ‘And coffee,’ she agreed. ‘Sugar and caffeine aren’t exactly healthy. They always tell us not to drink coffee, especially, because it’ll stunt our growth or something.’

                ‘Isn’t that a myth?’

Akari shrugged. ‘That’s not really the point.’

                ‘It’s only another week and a bit.’ Taiki closed his eyes against the evening sun. ‘And then the holidays. And the digital world.’

                ‘The digital world is not a holiday,’ Akari muttered. ‘No offence, guys,’ she added, for the benefit of the digimon, ‘but we are fighting for world peace there. Like, literally.’

                ‘It’ll be a paradise when I whip it back into shape,’ Shoutmon replied. ‘You’ll see!’

They laughed. ‘We will,’ Akari agreed. Taiki gave her a sidelong glance, but said nothing.

She didn’t need him to, anyway. She knew the unasked doubts. She was the one who’d wanted to return the most, after all. Now, she wished they’d stayed, because the sensation of having left the digital world in peril (even though they knew, thanks to Wisemon, that no time was passing while they had part of the Code Crown with them here). But the reason she wanted to go back was because she’d been there, by the side of Taiki and Zenjirou and the digimon, and she had to see that through. She _wanted_ to see them through.

Maybe that was part of the reason she couldn’t keep Taiki away from those people that chased their dreams, because it was rarely ever a one-step process to the finish line and he couldn’t leave them hanging either. He’d take as much of the weight as he could, even if it had had originally nothing to do with him. And he carried it until he wound up with bags under his eyes to carry as well, and then the colour dropped off. What would be next? If he wasn’t eating properly and over-exercising, it’d be the weight, wouldn’t it?

                ‘How much do you weigh?’ she asked.

Taiki stared at her. ‘I – ‘ he spluttered. ‘That –‘

Okay, that was a little rude, she allowed. And a little sudden.

                ‘It’s not like I’ve stood on scales and weighed myself,’ Taiki managed, finally.

                ‘Fair enough,’ she muttered. She hadn’t for a while either. ‘But you better not be losing weight.’

                ‘I… don’t think I am?’ He looked down at himself.

Well, at least he wasn’t dismissing the idea out of hand.

                ‘And you’re not turning into an insomniac with all that caffeine and sugar, are you?’

                ‘…no?’ Taiki still looked a little started, and Akari supposed she had switched into interrogation mode and thrown him off a little. ‘I sleep fine.’

The dark bags under his eyes said something else. ‘Shoutmon?’ Akari asked.

Taiki side-eyed his Xros Loader. ‘Shoutmon stays up studying with me,’ he admitted, ‘but there’s really nothing…’

                ‘Taiki sleeps through till his alarm,’ Shoutmon agreed. ‘He just doesn’t go to bed until two or three in the morning.’

Akari frowned. ‘That is not enough sleep.’

                ‘Just till the exams,’ Taiki repeated. And they were over halfway there already.

What she really wanted to do was stop everything else, but Taiki wouldn’t accept that. She’d tried already, and last time too.

Last time, though, they didn’t have the digital world and the digimon to factor in. He’d been okay, then, though he’d crashed pretty hard once he’d stopped with the late night coffee fixes. ‘Okay,’ Akari sighed, rubbing her brow. ‘Okay. I just worry, you know.’

                ‘I know,’ Taiki smiled. ‘And I know I’d get myself into a lot of trouble without you looking out for me. And ‘kaa-san. And now Shoutmon and the other guys too.’

                ‘Don’t take advantage of us,’ she harrumphed. Though it was a little bit of that, in the end. Just like how their classmates knew they could rely on Taiki, Taiki knew he could rely on them. And they were the people who dared to dream, and dared to try: the ones who had someone waiting to catch them if they fell.

If only Taiki dared to dream his own dreams, instead of other people’s…

But it was a mental block that wasn’t going to be easy to break apart.


	7. google searches (Kiriha)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt for this chapter is #6 - pack

It had been over a week, and Kiriha was surprised to discover that he couldn’t find Xros Heart at all. He’d expected them to leave a trail of breadcrumbs like they had in the digital world, but instead they’d either slotted seamlessly back into their old lives or they were playing the caution card and lying low.

And Taiki might be clever, but not overly cautious. Oh, he cared about the lives about his army to the point of foolishness, but he wasn’t the type to hide and strike from the shadows. The agenda he chased – his purpose for leading the army and fighting for the Code Crown – would not allow such a covert operation.

So what? He was putting the digital world on hold and chasing after other frivolous things? That didn’t sound like him either. Not that Kiriha could claim to know Taiki very well. They only ever met on the battlefield. But, on the battlefield, one developed an understanding of their opponent like they couldn’t elsewhere.

So if Taiki was doing something instead of finding the fastest way back to the digital world, he either knew something Kiriha didn’t or he was doing something he felt was more important. Or both.

And Kiriha wondered if that something else had anything to do with his two tagalongs: the humans who weren’t Generals but still tried to make themselves useful because they were just as tangled up in the fate of another world as the rest of them.

If it had been Kiriha, he’d have built his own army with or without a digivice. He wouldn’t have hung around standing under somebody else’s umbrella. And no-one would do that for him, either. He had older brothers that could have, that should have – but they didn’t. He was on his own. And that suited him just fine nowadays.

But when Taiki had the other half of what had gotten them to the human world in the first place… He had no choice but to look for him, since Taiki didn’t seem to be trying it the other way. Though that might have been an easier task with Nene and her Monitormon. Or a Datamon, but he’d never picked one of those up. His army was built for power, all in all, and now was one of those times where he needed something else.

He sighed. Though it wasn’t like power-houses were completely useless when it came to the more covert operations. MailBirdramon could fly, at least, and he had a few other fliers. They could hide in the clouds and scan the waves of faces that looked so similar to them, to find the three familiar ones.

Greymon was too conspicuous without the ability to fly and hide in the clouds, so he stayed in the Xros Loader.

Kiriha, meanwhile, combed the internet. Frustratingly, most of the results gave a singer in Da-ICE with the same name. And he didn’t know enough about the Kudou Taiki that was Xros Heart’s General to be able to limit that search.

And so he searched through pages and pages of results before he found other Kudou Taikis – and he was surprised at how common the name was. Not ridiculously common, but enough so that he hadn’t stumbled across the right Taiki at all until he found the results of a district-wide track meet. That one had a picture that was mistakenly a younger Taiki… but all it really served to do was narrow down the district. Taiki wasn’t in elementary school anymore, and that was assuming he hadn’t moved to another area.

Still, Kiriha kept combing – and his digimon that were capable of flight continued combing the city from the skies.

If he could just find the name of the middle school, he could find Taiki… assuming he was going back to school. He probably was. Exams were next week and Kiriha was well aware of that. He should have been preparing for his own, but there were other things to do. More important things. Things that would decide his future in a way getting good grades at school wouldn’t. But there were so many more results to filter through…

He tried new keywords. Track. Sports. That helped, and the right Taiki popped up more often. Taiki in track. Taiki in kendo. Taiki in basketball. Taiki in, essentially, every sport under the sun. And, with the more recent ones, he managed to find Taiki’s middle school.

He found a few other things, as well. And it was curiosity that made him read those articles more thoroughly – or so he’d argue with himself. Just curiosity: a need to further understand his rival and his opponent on the battlefield.

He looked up Amano Nene for the same reason. Two Generals he was fighting against, that he needed to be victorious against. And both of them had skeletons in the proverbial closet. Both of them had things dragged onto the internet: a place where there was little privacy if someone looked deeply enough.

Though the digital world was too far removed for even that, apparently. Amano Nene and her little sister had disappeared some years ago, and there hadn’t been a drop of information since.

Kiriha stared at that. He’d been gone for two months, himself, and it was his school that had raised the fuss. But missing children posters didn’t stay in someone’s attention for very long. No-one had reported him yet. No-one had noticed he wasn’t missing anymore, and they probably wouldn’t unless he went back to school or someone noticed his should-be empty apartment was inhabited again. He avoided his usual shopping outlets as well, because he knew he’d be going back to the digital world soon enough and it was far simpler to not deal with his “disappearance”.

Still, two months was nothing when compared to years. And Amano Nene had been alone in the digital world, so where was her little sister? Orphaned as well – and Kiriha might have wondered if Taiki was an orphan too to round off the set, except a few of the newspaper articles mentioned his father being a well-known sports trainer that travelled all through Tokyo.

And then there was Kudou Taiki, sports boy extraordinaire who dabbled in different things but didn’t seem to stick to any one in particular after dropping track in elementary school. And Kiriha had stumbled on the potential reason before he’d found the middle school name.

A classmate and club mate, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life after an incident on the track revealed a hidden monster. Unfortunate for the kid who’d dreamed of competing in the Olympics one day. Unfortunate for the rest of the track members who’d been shooting for similar goals – or hadn’t – to be faced with the cruel dream-enders they thought only adults saw.

Well, Kiriha couldn’t pity really pity him. Dreams were intangible things and who knew what Taiki’s dream had been, anyway. And friends weren’t the same as family, wasn’t the same as losing family, or being abandoned by them, or being kept at arm’s length and so removed that barely anyone knew their invisible guardians were blood related. He could sympathise with the Amano siblings that way, but Kudou Taiki… He couldn’t sympathise with Taiki. That little tidbit of his past may not even have anything to do with the person he was now.

He thought it did, though. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was because that was the only sordid detail of his past he’d found, amidst a slew of achievements. Maybe it was because the Kudou Taiki he’d gotten to know on the battlefield always seemed to take the limits of people and digimon into account. They all had their roles, and sometimes they pushed beyond their comfort zones (he remembered Zenjirou’s pale face clinging to a stalk) but it was never anything they couldn’t do and, as far as he could tell, Taiki had never lost a member of Xros Heart.

Both Kiriha and Nene had sacrificed members of their army for the greater good. He knew that for a fact. Was Taiki’s reluctance simply kindness or was there something more to it? Because he could easily imagine Taiki hoarding every friend he found, every person (and digimon) he got to know, trying to make all their dreams come true because he’d seem somebody else’s fall through…

MailBirdramon’s shadow fell over him. ‘I’ve found them,’ he rumbled, when Kiriha logged out of the computer and climbed onto the roof.

‘Finally,’ Kiriha replied, and climbed further, over the rails and onto MailBirdramon’s back. ‘I got tired reading about that idiot, you know.’

                ‘If you say so, Kiriha.’ But MailBirdramon sounded amused.

At least he respected him enough to not call him out on the obvious lie. Because Kudou Taiki was far from an idiot, even if he was naïve. And he was far from boring, either.

Kiriha would have already figured him out if he were. He, and Amano Nene as well.


	8. bulls-eye (Zenjirou)

Zenjirou wasn’t expecting to wait so long for Taiki and Akari at their school gate (since they were supposed to pick him up before going to the kendo club rooms). He also wasn’t expecting to have company while he waited.

Though if he was going to have company, it would be either someone from his school, or one of the other Generals. And it was: Aunoma Kiriha, with folded arms and a blue jacket instead of the attire he’d worn in the Digital World. But that made sense. They’d been in the human world for about a week and a half, now. In their own houses, with their own closet full of clothes and he doubted he’d be touching the ones he’d worn to the Digital World again for a while. It was probably the same for the others, as well.

But at least if it had been Nene instead, they could have talked about something. Kiriha just stood there, arms folded and eyes scanning every student that passed… and causing a few to glare back.

Zenjirou sighed. ‘You know, I’m waiting for those two as well. They’re not going to just walk right past.’

                ‘Two?’ Kiriha repeated.

Well, that was something, right?

                ‘Yeah, Taiki and Akari.’

                ‘Hmmph.’ He turned away from the crowd of students. ‘I don’t care about you tagalongs.’

                ‘Just Taiki, then.’ They’d been pretty disgruntled over being passed over in the Digital World, but at this point they were used to it. ‘But, you know, he’s hopeless on his own.’

                ‘Hnn.’ Of course, Kiriha wouldn’t have seen. Or maybe he had, a little. ‘You and your teamwork prattle.’

 _Okay,_ Zenjirou thought, _not what I meant but that’s true too._

They descended into an awkward silence again. Luckily, Akari showed up before it became unbearable.

But just Akari. No Taiki. ‘He’s finishing his lunch,’ Akari explained. ‘I swear, he’s just gotten slower and slower. Why he can’t be like my brothers who just inhale their food?’

                ‘Whatever,’ Kiriha grumbled – and Akari did a double take as she noticed him. ‘I just want to know what he’s hanging around here for.’

                ‘Exams?’ Akari blinked like he’d grown an extra head. ‘They’re like next week. Don’t you have them too?’

He scoffed. Apparently wasn’t too interested in exams.

                ‘You’re not going to be a General in the Digital World forever,’ Zenjirou pointed out. ‘Count yourself lucky time hadn’t passed between leaving and coming back.’

                ‘Lucky,’ Kiriha echoed, before scoffing again. ‘Two months have passed, and not a single person cares. In any case, since I plan on going back to the Digital World, it’s easier to stay off the radar now.’

                ‘Two months?’ they echoed. No time at all had passed for them. ‘But,’ Akari added, ‘we left on Marine Day, and it was still Marine Day when we got back.’

                ‘Then you were the lucky ones,’ Kiriha muttered.

Neither Zenjirou nor Akari knew quite what to say to that, except an empty apology.

                ‘Where is Taiki?’ Kiriha asked, finally. ‘And when is he planning on going back to the Digital World?’

                ‘After exams,’ Akari replied, folding her arms like Kiriha had folded his. ‘And some rest after that, because –‘

Zenjirou slapped a hand over her mouth. Kiriha wasn’t a friend. He wasn’t even an ally half the time. It wouldn’t do to blab about personal matters to them – when he, who he hoped _was_ considered a friend, only knew about half the story.

Which kind of wasn’t fair, but Taiki was very good at evading the topic and the usually straight-forward Akari hadn’t offered any tidbits of her own, so apparently she didn’t want to talk about it either.

                ‘I’d rather talk to Taiki.’ Kiriha, it seemed, wasn’t deterred by Akari – and kudos to him, because many people _were._ If Taiki couldn’t bring himself to say “no”, Akari would put her foot down. She didn’t do it very often, though. She, too, had a hard time saying no to Taiki, even when she thought it was for his own good.

But that was the thing. They were kids just like him. They disagreed on things. Sometimes, they’d argue. But who could say which one of them was right or wrong and didn’t the person themselves usually know what was best for their bodies and their souls?

                ‘It won’t hurt,’ Zenjirou cut in, before Akari could argue some more – and fair enough, because Kiriha hadn’t exactly armoured himself to them. But Taiki probably would want to talk to him too, if he knew. Taiki was just that kind of guy. ‘And you know Taiki will want to.’

                ‘True.’ She sighed, then turned around and led the way. She threw in a few landmarks too, probably for Kiriha’s benefit though he didn’t comment on the impromptu tour.

Except she stopped in front of an empty classroom and muttered something.

                ‘Finished and ran off?’ Zenjirou asked.

                ‘At the gym, then.’ She rubbed her forehead, then grabbed her own bag from a desk by the door and set off again with the boys tagging along behind.

Taiki wasn’t at the gym, but at his locker, putting his bag away and changing shoes. ‘Akari!’ he called cheerfully, seeing them pass. ‘And hey, Zenjirou… and Kiriha?’

So he hadn’t been expecting Kiriha to suddenly drop in on them, either.

                ‘What are you doing here?’ Kiriha snapped. ‘The digimon –‘

                ‘Time’s not passing between our worlds at the moment,’ Taiki explained, when Kiriha cut himself abruptly off. ‘This is a good chance to regroup, and take care of a few things that had been on our minds.’

                ‘Like exams?’ Kiriha still looked like he was having trouble with the concept… and Zenjriou wondered why. No matter what you did, Japanese education was compulsory until high school so they had another three years to go. And most well-paying jobs required a university degree. It was just the way things were. And maybe if Kiriha was still officially missing, he could get away with missing his exams and making them up later, but for them who hadn’t been of gallivanting in another world as far as the rest of this one was concerned…

Wait a sec… ‘What do you mean nobody is worried?’ Zenjirou exclaimed. ‘What about your parents?’

                ‘None of your business,’ Kiriha muttered.

                ‘And Nene…’ Zenjirou mused, not really listening.

Kiriha sighed, annoyed. ‘We’re both orphans. Happy now?’

                ‘We’re sorry,’ said Taiki, after an awkward pause. ‘We didn’t mean to dreg up anything.’

Kiriha snorted at that. ‘Well, don’t be, because I did.’

                ‘Huh.’ They all blinked in confusion at that.

Kiriha simply took something out of his bag and handed it to Taiki, who skimmed it and frowned.

Zenjirou peeked at it too (which he knew he shouldn’t, but he was curious and tired of missing some major part of the tale). It was a print-off of something. A newspaper article. Which looked like it had nothing to do with Taiki at all, except then why were his knuckles going white?

Why couldn’t they have been sitting down and having afternoon tea together instead? That might have been a more suitable setting. Maybe with some sake… when they were all old enough for it. His father always said serious discussions became a little easier with sake. Though he wasn’t sure what this particular article had to do with anything.

“Tragedy for Young Track Team Member: Sano Tatsuya’s Dreams Tripped Up.”

                ‘Who’s Sano Tatsuya?’ Zenjirou asked finally. Akari elbowed him – but really, he already knew he should have kept that question to himself.

However… ‘I’d like to know that too,’ said Kiriha.

                ‘A classmate from elementary school,’ Taiki replied quietly, eyes fixed on the paper. ‘He wanted to go to the Olympics, and he knew my father is a sports trainer so he’d often want to practice with me. And I was looking at what sport interested me the most at the time and was with the track team then. And so we practiced: early mornings, every morning before school and weekends as well. And then in the evenings. There was barely enough time for homework.’ He laughed, and Zenjirou wondered if that was where he’d gotten the hang of doing his homework late at night, with his daylight hours packed full. ‘And then…’ He waved the paper. ‘Well, you read it.’

                ‘Kid turned out to have a degenerative muscular condition that means he’s in a wheelchair by ten and will probably be dead by twenty,’ Kiriha summarised.

Zenjirou winced. He hadn’t realised that was what Duchene muscular dystrophy meant. He supposed Kiriha had looked that up.

                ‘Sped up by all the strenuous exercise we were doing,’ Taiki added – and then it clicked, for Zenjirou. What was odd about his voice. What the article meant.

He was blaming himself, still, for something that was out of his control.


	9. dues ex machina (Shoutmon)

Taiki was supposed to be occupied with the kendo club all evening, which was why it was a surprise to have him slip into the computer room not even half an hour after dropping them off there.

                ‘Taiki?’ Shoutmon asked. ‘Are you feeling okay?’ He looked pale… paler than he’d been that morning, anyway.

                ‘Yeah, fine.’ But the way he plopping himself onto a chair suggested it wasn’t. ‘Hey, Shoutmon. What are we doing here?’

Cutemon crept onto his lap. Taiki didn’t fight it. ‘Hanging around until you and Zenjirou are done helping with the kendo team?’ Shoutmon tried.

Taiki leaned back and stared at the ceiling, as though there was the answer to something written there. ‘Kiriha’s here,’ he commented.

                ‘Oh?’ That meant he had the other piece of the Code Crown that opened the gate to the human world. ‘Wisemon can take a look at that.’

Indeed, Wisemon did look eager. But Taiki didn’t look particularly enthused. ‘That Kiriha… He sure did his research…’

The digimon looked at each other. ‘Is there something you wanted to keep secret?’ Shoutmon tried. If there was, it was something they weren’t aware of themselves.

                ‘No, not really,’ Taiki sighed. He dropped something on the table. A scrunched up piece of paper. It was neither permission nor anything else. Just an act of being tired, Shoutmon thought.

Cutemon, curious, crawled out of Taiki’s lap and onto the table. Taiki rubbed his forehead and ignored the sound of crinkling paper as Cutemon straightened it out. Dorulumon came over, ready to scold.

Shoutmon was half-curious and half-concerned, but it wasn’t like Taiki couldn’t say something if he didn’t want them reading it.

So they read it. And they learnt absolutely nothing, because the article seemed to have nothing to do with Taiki at all. It was about some other kid, and it was old, on top of that. A few years old. But maybe it was something they, as digimon, couldn’t see because their worlds and cultures were all inherently different. Maybe it was a human thing. Or maybe it was just something for some humans.

Sure, Taiki was the kind of guy who’d be upset at other people’s hurts, but this was old and, as far as Shoutmon could tell, unrelated. ‘I don’t get it,’ he admitted. ‘Is he someone you know?’

                ‘Knew,’ Taiki corrected. Then he sighed. ‘I guess I should tell you guys the whole story.’ But he sounded like he didn’t want to.

                ‘You don’t have to…‘ Shoutmon began – hoping the others didn’t interrupting, yelling “story-time” or something similar, like they sometimes had a tendency to.

They didn’t. But Taiki told the story anyway.

.

Later, the other digimon busied themselves again, as though sensing that Taiki and Shoutmon needed some time to themselves. Or maybe Taiki just needed some alone-time, but Shoutmon figured he was getting more of that than he really should have been, all things considered. Studying for exams was alone-time even if Shoutmon tried to stay up with him. So was sleeping time. And class-time. Maybe not lunch times, though, since he pretty much always spent that with Akari.

                ‘What do you want to do?’ Shoutmon asked. ‘Just hang out here?’

Taiki looked around. ‘I really should be helping the kendo club –‘

                ‘Nope.’ That wasn’t what he asked, and he was starting to pick up the vast difference between the two, at least when Taiki was concerned. ‘What do you _want_ to do?’

                ‘Want?’ Taiki was still looking around. There was something odd in his eyes. Like he wasn’t focusing on anything. Like he had nothing to focus on. ‘Go for a run, maybe?’

Inwardly, Shoutmon groaned. That was going to be tricky to do with Taiki. But when they got to the course, it was empty. _Thank goodness._

It was good training too. Some of the other digimon followed them down and they had a great time running laps and tumbling over each other and then laughing helplessly when Taiki and Shoutmon lapped them.

Shoutmon just tried to keep up with Taiki. And Taiki just kept running in circles, looking like he was having the least amount of fun of all, despite having been the one who suggested it.

.

Kiriha left at some point. Zenjirou manned kendo practice, and then found Taiki still running laps while Akari searched the school. It took Shoutmon pointing him out, though, for Taiki to notice. It was like he’d become preoccupied with his feet: preoccupied with putting one leg in front of the other.

                ‘Hey,’ Zenjirou said quietly, as Taiki came over. ‘Sorry about bringing that up.’

                ‘Well,’ Taiki shrugged, ‘it was Kiriha who really brought it up.’

                ‘Yeah, but…’ Zenjirou shook his head, then clapped Taiki on the shoulder. ‘Doesn’t really matter who to you, I guess. But don’t be so hard on yourself.’

                ‘He would’ve had a few extra years.’ Taiki shrugged again. ‘He still goes to the track field, you know.’

                ‘This one?’ Zenjirou looked around. There was no-one except them… and the digimon.

Taiki shook his head. ‘At the elementary school. But I haven’t talked to him since.’

Zenjirou looked confused. Shoutmon was confused as well. Didn’t he want to talk to the other boy? ‘Don’t you want to?’

Taiki shrugged a third time, before turning away. ‘I think I’m going to head home, now.’

                ‘Wait a sec! What about what Kiriha –‘

                ‘Kiriha will do what he wants to do, regardless of if and when we return to the Digital World,’ said Taiki.

And that stopped them all short. _If?_

                ‘There’s no reason for you and Akari to go back,’ Taiki continued, as though he hadn’t noticed the sudden pin drop silence. ‘It’s too dangerous for –‘

They didn’t hear the rest of it, talking over each other. Wizarmon’s ‘I’m working on it’ stuck out the most to both Zenjirou and Shoutmon, but Taiki, something else on his mind altogether. Simply knelt down to untie his shoes – and staggered.

Zenjirou grabbed his harm. He put the other on his forehead. ‘Just dizzy,’ he gasped.

Shoutmon, whose legs were burning more than was pleasant for a long workout, frowned but didn’t say anything. After all, hadn’t he been the one who told Taiki to do something he wanted to do?

But that boy had wanted to run track, hadn’t he? Was that why?

                ‘Taiki…’ But, once again, he didn’t know what to say.

.

They went their separate ways, after Taiki had sat down for a bit. And Taiki, as Shoutmon was learning was quite typical of him, launched straight into helping his mother prepare the dinner, then eating dinner, and then starting on his homework and studying for his exams.

When Shoutmon asked what he’d wanted to do, he’d gone for a run… but maybe that was something he felt he had to do, after those memories were dragged up.

                ‘Taiki, what are your hobbies?’ he asked. ‘What are the things you like to do? What are the things you want?’

Taiki set down his pencil. ‘I want people to achieve their dreams without it costing them… or other people.’

                ‘And you?’ Because that wasn’t entirely accurate, as far as he knew.

                ‘Well, I already took away somebody else’s dream, so that’s my punishment.’ His pencil scratched along, the only sound for a while. And then… ‘It’s not that I’ve given up on life, or having dreams. I just can’t forgive myself for taking somebody else’s dream away like that, for something I wasn’t even that passionate about. Back then, I’d do anything that caught my interest. I was like a cat chasing whatever round thing came my way. And sometimes it got me or other people into trouble, but that’d blow over real quick and things would be fine. The worst was when I tried to sail the world. Got caught in Tokyo Bay.’

                ‘Where’s Tokyo Bay?’ Shoutmon asked… though the fact he had to ask did answer that, somewhat.

                ‘Far-ish,’ Taiki replied. ‘Far for a little kid on a home-made raft. I was gone for two days. My parents and Akari were worried sick.’

Yeah, Shoutmon could see that… kind-of. He was still yet to meet Taiki’s father, but his mother definitely fussed over her son. And Akari ran after him with pillows and fruit drinks. And even Zenjirou was joining in on that, manning kendo practices for a team and school that wasn’t even his own.

                ‘But then Tatsuya wound up in the hospital. Wound up unable to walk. You know, I was the one who got him interested in track in the first place. It was my fault.’

The pen wasn’t scratching anymore. Instead, there was a soft pattering noise, like light rain. Except there wasn’t supposed to be any rain.

Shoutmon went over.

No, there wasn’t any rain. Taiki’s shoulders were shaking. Drops were falling onto his notebook.

Cutemon stirred, shook himself awake and came over. ‘Does something hurt?’ he asked, crawling into Taiki’s lap again.

Shoutmon wondered if that kid had a radar of some sort.

But even as Cutemon’s hands glowed and he patted Taiki from top to bottom, Shoutmon thought it wouldn’t do much good at all. Cutemon’s healing powers only worked on physical injuries, after all. And even then, he had his limits.

But Taiki was staring at Cutemon like something had just occurred to him: his dues ex machine against an enemy he couldn’t beat.

But Shoutmon could so it, this time. See it clearly. _Taiki, that’s… not going to work._

But he wasn’t sure enough to say it out loud. After all, every plan Taiki had come up with for them, however unlikely they’d seemed at the time, had worked.


	10. black and white and grey (Akari)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt for this chapter is "stem"

Akari woke up the next morning to find that Taiki had been calling her in the night.

                ‘Well, more like three in the morning,’ her father amended, as he passed on the message. ‘Really, you kids are too young to be pulling all-nighters like that. Still being as reckless as ever?’

                ‘You could say that,’ Akari sighed. ‘It’s a little different now though, I guess. Remember when he used to put his heart and soul into everything?’

                ‘He does cause less trouble now, doesn’t he?’

Akari snorted at that. ‘Less trouble for who?’ she asked. ‘If we don’t keep an eye on him, he’ll pass out in the middle of the road from overworking himself and be run over by a truck.’

                ‘Now, that’s not nice Akari,’ her mother scolded, setting a plate in front of her. ‘You don’t really want such a thing happening.’           

                ‘Of course not!’ she exclaimed. ‘But yesterday he ran until he couldn’t even walk straight, and that was after Shoutmon ordered him to do something for himself after Kiriha upset him –‘

                ‘Shoutmon?’ her parents echoed.

                ‘Uhh… new friend.’ Well, that wasn’t a lie.

                ‘And Kiriha? New friend too?’

Akari shook her head. ‘He’s… complicated. Kiriha is… well, he’s kind of a gang leader.’ At her parents’ looks, she waved her hands. ‘Not a real gang. But you know, a following of sorts. And he wants Taiki as his second in command or something, because Taiki’s pretty good at strategizing, except he doesn’t respect Taiki’s way of doing things at all and Taiki can’t accept the way he does things either.’

                ‘Hmm,’ her father said thoughtfully. ‘I’m guessing this Kiriha is the sort that doesn’t see the value of individuals, then.’

                ‘Yeah, that’s it exactly!’ Akari sighed again. ‘Truthfully though, I think Taiki is a little jealous of Kiriha who just charges ahead with his dream, regardless of what or who he sacrifices or hurts along the way. But he can’t forgive himself for having done the same thing with Tatsuya-kun.’

                ‘Ah, but what sort of dream is it if you can give it up?’ asked her father. ‘Granted, things are never as black and white as that, but didn’t you say Taiki-kun always fluttered from one thing to another, to whatever interested him?’

                ‘Yeah…’ She had said that. So had Taiki. And, often, she’d flutter right along with him. Well, both those things had lasted. He still dashed between multiple things and she ran along after him. But the intent behind that was different, now. Before, she’d chase him because she wanted to see what he saw. Now she chased him because she didn’t want to let him wear himself to the bone. ‘But he stopped looking for his dream. Most people don’t have it fall into their lap.’

                ‘You did,’ her mother commented, and Akari went red. ‘Well, you have been chasing after that boy for a long time.’

                ‘It’s not like that,’ she protested – but truthfully, it didn’t matter whether it was or wasn’t, or whether that would change in the future. ‘Well, Taiki is that kind of person and that’s not really going to change if he puts himself first or others. Even if he does try to push us away…’ She sighed again at that. Zenjirou had only mentioned it quickly and it hadn’t looked like he was considering it at all – but wasn’t it because of her that they’d chased a way out of the Digital World, in the beginning. But the digimon had become her friends, as well. And she wasn’t useless. She wasn’t holding them back. If she were, she would have swallowed her pride and stayed… but even the Digital World and its singular purpose didn’t stop Taiki from trying to burn himself out. And yes, she’d run into her fair share of traps (particularly Nene) but Taiki, at the forefront of things, had run into more.

And she’d worry, so far from him. And Zenjirou, too. And Kiriha and Nene as well, even if they weren’t friends and might never be. Taiki believed in Nene, though, and Akari too thought she could see something beyond the shadows that shuttered her expression – and in Kiriha, too.

Actually, she thought she understood Kiriha pretty well. Kiriha who’d stopped believing in other people. Kiriha who charged ahead at full speed, not looking at the destruction that was left behind because he’d been abandoned at the beginning of the road and so thought nobody would carry him through.

Or maybe she was just assuming that much. But still. And Taiki and Kiriha, as they were now, would never meet on the same path. And they needed to, with what they faced. The Generals. Amano Nene. And the digimon behind them all, pulling the strings.

Maybe all Kiriha needed was somebody else: somebody to believe in him, to worry about him, to chase after him when he marched forward and pull him back when he tethered on the edge. And that was who she wanted to be to Taiki: the person Taiki needed, as well. And maybe everybody needed someone like that. And maybe one person wasn’t all it took, because Taiki had his mother, and Zenjirou, and Shoutmon and the other digimon too.

This time, though, he needed someone else. He needed Tatsuya. If only the two of them would talk…

                ‘Guess I’ll call Taiki and see if he’s left for school yet.’ Though he probably had, with that paper run and all.

.

                ‘You want to talk to Tatsuya?’ Akari repeated.

                ‘Kind of,’ Taiki admitted. ‘I’m not sure I can, especially about this – but Cutemon’s healing powers…’

Ah, she understood now. ‘Taiki, this has been happening practically since he was born. Cutemon can’t fix curses. He probably can’t fix genetic problems either.’

When the silence from the other end echoed in her ears, she wondered if she should have been so direct.

                ‘I just mean,’ she tried, ‘it’d be good to try, but don’t get your or his hopes too high. Some things just… well, are. The digimon aren’t miracle workers.’

                ‘I know, it’s just…’ Taiki drifted off. ‘I just can’t believe I didn’t think of that earlier.’

She huffed a laugh. ‘Yeah, sometimes it’s funny what does or doesn’t occur to us. You know, Zenjirou is surprised you still haven’t talked to Tatsuya. This is a good reason, if you’re looking for one.’

                ‘Actually,’ he admitted, ‘I initially rang to ask if you would, but that was just cowardly of me.’

Well, if Taiki was saying that himself… ‘Kind of was,’ Akari agreed, ‘but we can’t say when you’re ready, or what he’s thinking, or how it’ll all turn out. That’s up to the two of you.’ What she could say though… ‘What were you even doing up at three in the morning?’ Even now was too early, but they still had school so it couldn’t be helped. ‘Did you get _any_ sleep last night?’

                ‘Not really,’ Taiki admitted. ‘I didn’t get much done, either.’ He sighed. ‘Really, I wasted a whole afternoon and night.’

                ‘Nothing we do is a waste,’ Akari said. ‘Either that, or we waste ninety percent of our lives.’

                ‘…where’d you get that number from?’

Truthfully, she’d made it up. ‘Forget that. You don’t want to be late for school, right? We’ve only got a few more days before exams.’

But when she hung up, she realised she’d forgotten to ask two things: why Cutemon’s powers had come up last night of all times, and why he hadn’t been on that paper run.

.

She couldn’t find Taiki at school. That was more than unusual: that simply never happened unless something was wrong. Like the time Taiki jumped on that raft of his and sailed into Tokyo Bay. He’d been missing for two days, including a full day of school. And he certainly hadn’t mentioned anything on the phone…

Unless he’d gone to visit Tatsuya-kun? That seemed rather abrupt considering how long he’d been avoiding it… but he’d also run her at three in the morning when inspirations struck so she wouldn’t put it past him.

He hadn’t called in sick either though, if the teacher questioning his absence in first period was any indication. Did he forget about school entirely? She tethered between being worried and being not as she collected last minute information from the teachers to pass on to him at a later time.

When Zenjirou popped by, she shrugged. She didn’t know where Taiki was. When Kiriha showed up again, she shrugged again. Zenjirou took it in good enough graces, though he was worried too, but Kiriha scowled. ‘He’s skipping school now too? What the hell is he doing?’

Akari didn’t explain it. She was sure that if she shared what Taiki had confined in her this morning, and the rest of the background, that Kiriha wouldn’t offer any pity or understanding at all. He’d think it cowardly. He already thought it cowardly: the reason Taiki had devoted himself to helping others. Something he thought admirable was so easily coloured by the background tale.

Maybe Taiki’s perception of Kiriha too would change, if he learnt what was driving the other boy. Or maybe he already suspected it, and that was why there was that grudging respect and jealousy… Two things that were usually aimed _at_ Taiki, instead of coming for him.

_Those two could be really great for each other…_

But the way they were both going… not so much right now.

And besides, where was Taiki right now?

Because when she dropped by the Kudou residence after school, his mother, with a similar look of worry, said that though later than the rest of this week, he’d left for school after all.


	11. outside hours (Miyuki)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hihi, I'm back! Finished the rest of this fic for the WIP big bang held on livejournal/dreamwidth and discovered via another big bang I'm a part of. I wish I'd had the time to enter more fics, but at least I got one of my babies all grown up. :) There's 18 chapters in total so seven more to go after this, so I'll be posting every few days till August 24 to get it all out by then. Enjoy!
> 
> Ooh, almost forgot. Prompt for this chapter is interfere.

Her husband was often travelling for work, but that didn't mean he was any less of a parent to Taiki than she, who was always physically there. Because when their children started crawling and working, they also start getting more and more distant.

She was biased though, as children could never be physically closer to their mother than in the womb.

Still, there was something other than the natural process of growing up that was keeping Taiki, she thought. Or perhaps this was one of those trials, those bumps, along the way. She didn't know. She didn't ask for the longest time either, but now…

He wasn't getting enough sleep. And she didn't think he was eating right either. He certainly wasn't remembering to take his bentos for lunch and Akari had complained more than once that he wasn't eating most of hers either – and it wasn't like either of them were bad cooks. Rather, if it hadn't been through sheer overexcitedness and forgetfulness causing Taiki to leave without his bento far too many times in his elementary school days, Miyuki would have been quite insulted. After all, Taiki ate more lunches prepared in the Hinomoto household than his own.

He was just lucky Akari was there. And sometimes, she wondered what made Akari stick around, with four younger brothers of her own at home. Sometimes, she wondered what Akari got out of their friendship – but that was when she was tired and frustrated and not at all thinking about the list of her son's good qualities – which most other times she could rattle off by heart and not be anywhere near the end before she'd lost her audience. And she knew her Taiki had a way of drawing people in. He had a good heart and thick skin and an unrivalled determination and she knew he'd go far once he found things worth sacrificing for.

That was just it, she knew. He was afraid of sacrificing things for his goal.

And it wasn't like she couldn't understand that. She and her husband had travelled all over Japan until she'd fallen pregnant. But she never regretted having a child, having Taiki, even if it meant their family spent more time apart than together. But it was all a part of their livelihood and their lives, so they managed.

And sometimes she'd keep Taiki home sick and they wouldn't.

But Taiki didn't skip school of his own accord unless he was trying to help someone else. He had, on occasion. Like the time he'd helped one of his classmates run away to her grandparents' place because her home environment was unsafe. And it was things like that that made her wonder why Taiki couldn't leave such matters to the adults… but it wasn't a matter of trusting or not trusting, he said. He simply couldn't turn away from someone hurting right in front of him.

…except when he couldn't see people hurting in front of him.

She sighed and looked outside. The sky was unwelcoming: dark with streaks of white and looking as though it would let loose at any moment. And Taiki wasn't at school, or home. And he hadn't taken an umbrella. He'd either expected to be home or he hadn't been paying attention to the weather forecast.

Though, with Taiki, she couldn't expect him to still have his umbrella anyway.

Still, that wasn't the worrying part. If Akari had been with him, or he'd been at school or at home, then at least she'd know he wasn't about to get soaked somewhere. At least she'd know where he was, and someone was keeping an eye on him…

Though maybe that was their problem, too, that they tried to keep too close an eye on him.

She didn't hold him back. She tried very hard not to, to the point where many parents thought she granted too many liberties to her son. He had to learn responsibility, they'd say. He had to be reprimanded for his misdeeds – and he was, when he misbehaved but how could she begrudge him when he tried to help the world? That wasn't the sort of thing she wanted to teach her son, that helping others was not okay. Inconveniencing more people in the process wasn't, and they'd gotten that point across when he'd tried to row across Tokyo bay alone.

Akari had never stayed out of one of his plans again. Maybe she'd been afraid he'd disappear for days – or worse – again.

Now though… Now it was Taiki who'd left Akari out of his plans. She'd dropped by after school to see if Taiki had stayed home sick and when Miyuki said he he'd left for school, she fretted to herself.

Of course, Miyuki asked why she thought so. Shouldn't they have seen each other at school?

'No,' Akari had replied. 'He didn't come to school. Last I heard from him was three in the morning when he'd phoned.'

And that was another thing Miyuki hadn't been aware of, that Taiki had been staying up past midnight when he said he'd go to bed "soon".

Of course, she should also know better, when something was bothering Taiki…

She'd had an inkling, but even now she had no idea, no clue, as to what it was.

'Tatsuya-kun,' Akari said – and there, finally, was the clue. 'He was thinking about Tatsuya-kun. About Cute – ' She cut herself off, and the tidbit she'd given made no sense out of context anyway, and so Miyuki dismissed it for the larger picture. 'About a dream he'd had about a miracle cure. I guess he was just looking for reassurance, but well…' She sounded almost guilty.

'Dreams are dreams,' Miyuki said quietly. 'There are the kind we aspire towards, and the kind which are simply impossible. But the thing about dreams is that neither sort are reality in the present.'

'No, they're not.' Akari sighed. 'I doubt he went to see Tatsuya-kun. He didn't want to before and it's probably less likely now. I told him he should, but… He should, right Kudou-san?'

She stared so earnestly at her. She was looking for reassurance, much like Miyuki was. 'That depends,' she mused. 'It'll be a change, of course, but what sort of change will depend on the interaction between them. But yes, they should.'

'Tatsuya-kun doesn't blame Taiki. He never did.'

No. She knew that because Taiki had pleaded to them to make sure Tatsuya was well cared for, and her husband had the contacts to get the best sports doctors and physiotherapists in Japan involved. But that didn't alleviate the guilt Taiki carried. That didn't mean Tatsuya saying he didn't blame Taiki would change that.

'I think… there's something else Tatsuya-kun needs to say.' But she also knew he could, if only given the chance and the thought. But why now? 'Did they run into each other recently? What's brought this to a front suddenly?'

'Well, kind of…' She was hedging, again, avoiding the question. What secret was she hiding, Miyuki wondered. What adventure had those two gone on that she didn't want to tell.

'Um… well…' Miyuki laughed. She'd asked that aloud, had she?

'It's fine,' she said. 'I don't need to know everything you two get up to, so long as you stay out of trouble.'

'We try,' Akari replied seriously, which meant of course they weren't staying out of trouble… but that was all part of a parent watching their children grow up too, wasn't it?

As long as their children weren't dealing with things by themselves. So this she could let go for now, because Akari was there. Tatsuya, on the other hand…

'Also, I may have added a bit of fuel to the fire.'

'Oh?' Miyuki was intrigued. Because a bit of fuel might help things along… or make things worse. But the angry clouds were bad enough. The guilt eating away was bad enough. A bit of fuel wouldn't lead to an irreparable friendship if the two boys never actually spoke to each other again.

'Yeah, Kiriha was being rather stubborn and I may have –'

She jumped, and Miyuki jumped a little too. Thunder rattled the windows, and the rain followed like an echo.

And Taiki was still not home, and presumably still didn't have an umbrella.

'Stay,' she said to Akari, as the girl stood. 'You're not going home in this weather.'

'But –' she protested, but fell silent when Miyuki picked up her purse and keys. 'I'll come with.'

'Stay,' Miyuki repeated. 'Someone needs to be here in case he comes home soaking wet.'

Because she could only leave Taiki to his own devices for so long, and a storm was crossing the line.

Maybe, it didn't even take the storm to cross the line, but it was a firm line, in any case. That was the bit that only got harder with growing kids: too many things tended to happen outside the window.

But that still didn't mean a little boy wouldn't let anyone or their mother in.

After all, company was an important survival tool.


	12. their rivalry (Kiriha)

Kiriha was, frankly put, annoyed. He’d come to talk about their plans to return to the Digital World and had been thwarted by the fact that Taiki hadn’t even showed up to school.

Less than a week before the midterms his friends were agonising after… but apparently he didn’t care enough to attend the final classes.

‘Why didn’t you just go back to the Digital World, then?’ he asked the sky.

It looked gloomy. Sufficiently grumpy, just like him.

But in a way he was glad Taiki hadn’t just run off to the Digital World without his friends. Because that would’ve been running away. From what he knew, and what he’d gleaned from Akari…

He stopped walking suddenly, staring at the athletic track he’d wound up at. ‘Why’d I come here?’ he grumbled to himself, annoyed.

MailBirdramon’s wings flashed in the distance, just in case. Or maybe he’d done that on purpose.

‘Right,’ Kiriha sighed. Of course, he’d been thinking about those idiots, Hinomoto Akari and Kudou Taiki. And that led him to think about Sano Tatsuya. And that led him here.

There was a white van, and a boy on a wheelchair getting in.

‘It’s about to storm, soon.’ Kiriha turned around. The speaker was tall, and in sports clothes with a sticker saying “physiotherapist” on their shirt. ‘We can give you a lift, if you like?’

‘Nah, that’s fine.’ Then, spotting the boy peeking out curiously from the window, he changed his mind. ‘Actually, is that Sano?’

‘Oh, are you two friends?’ Friendly, without a hint of suspicion.

‘You could say that,’ Kiriha shrugged. ‘I’ll take you up on that offer of a lift after all.’

.

Sano Tatsuya was friendly to a fault. The fact that he didn’t call Kiriha out on the lie was proof enough.

The fact that he was excited to hear Taiki’s name was even more so.

‘You don’t look like you plan to be dead by twenty,’ Kiriha said bluntly, five minutes into the ride.

It was also a mark of the rest of the adults that they didn’t react badly to the rash comment.

‘I don’t plan to,’ Tatsuya replied brightly. ‘I just have to do as much as possible before then, and if I’m still alive afterwards, that’s more chances to do more things.’

‘One could almost call you a gambler with those words.’ But that was someone living life to the fullest, chasing dreams even when their clock ticked closer than most. ‘Can’t say I begrudge that.’

In fact, he envied that. And he’d thought he’d taken the dive in the Digital World.

That was nothing compared to this.

‘Tell me, Sano. How would you take a corporate company back from your step-siblings?’

‘Is this a sign that you respect our resident optimist?’ asked the physiotherapist from the front with a grin.

‘Sure, whatever.’ He wasn’t going to say it out loud, even if that was what it was.

‘Corporate takeover…’ Tatsuya mused. ‘That depends, I guess. You just have to prove you’re the best person for the job. You could do that by proving they’re bad and slotting yourself in, but then someone might open you up the same way and you’ve left a trial of breadcrumbs. Or you could just be the better person and that might take longer but then no-one can prove you don’t.’

It still sounded overly simplified, but the fundamentals were there, in any case.

‘Figured as much?’ Tatsuya asked. ‘I’m not sprouting super powers, after all.’

‘No, just a dream and a drive and resources that are aiming to get you there.’

He lacked resources, himself. Taiki lacked the dream.

‘Hey, Sano. What do you think about Kudou Taiki?’

‘I’m disappointed, really.’ Tatsuya looked at his lap.

‘Good,’ said Kiriha, turning to stare at the rain pounding the windows. ‘So am I.’

.

They dropped him home. He grabbed an umbrella and was out again, suffering a snort from MailBirdramon who nonetheless promised to cover the worst of the rain. ‘I need a shower anyway.’

‘How about I spray you with bicarb?’ Kiriha jibed. He didn’t even have bicarb.

‘No thanks. We digimon aren’t as particular about soap as you humans.’ Which was true enough. Or food, as most of their stuff was tasteless. The cuisine of the human world must taste like gourmet, even when it was cheap microwave dinners and cereals in boxes.

But Mailbirdramon was better than an umbrella, and Kiriha walked under its shade to the elementary school where Taiki had once gone, to the place he thought Taiki might be now.

There were some things a rival knew better than a friend, after all.

And he was right. Taiki was right there, in the bleachers, staring at the empty field. He didn’t even look up when Mailbirdramon blotted out the sky, or when Kiriha made his way through the rows.

He only looked up when Kiriha’s grip on his shirt forced him to. ‘Oh, hi Kiriha.’

‘You airhead,’ Kiriha sighed… then mentally corrected himself. Taiki’s eyes weren’t focused on the invisible breeze, but rather the shadows. ‘This isn’t the weather to be strolling down memory lane. If you get sick, it’ll just delay getting back to the Digital World. And if you fail your exams, same thing.’

‘Are you worried?’ Taiki’s lips twitched. ‘I didn’t take you for the kind.’

‘I’ve met Sano,’ Kiriha said abruptly, instead of replying to the jibe. He wasn’t going to admit he was worried. Not to a Kudou Taiki who looked like that… and maybe never, to anyone.

_Become a worthy man, or prove the ones currently there are unworthy. And becoming the worthier man is the only reliable option, huh._

‘Did you?’ There was morbid curiosity in his tone, as though he knew he was about to be killed and had been asked what method he preferred. _Melodramatic._ Kiriha’s lips curled. It was Taiki’s friends who suffered from melodrama as far as he’d come to know. Taiki was the rational one with the creative ideas that worked far more effectively than anything by the book Kiriha managed by himself. That’s why he’d wanted him. That’s why they quarrelled. Because they were different, with different strengths and weaknesses, but _this_ –

Kiriha punched him.

Taiki tumbled down, between the rows of seats.

Taiki who should have been able to take that punch straight on.

Taiki whose lips were already bleeding, as though they’d become that friable, that weak…

Kiriha sighed. ‘You’re not even eating right, are you?’

‘I am.’ It didn’t even sound like a protest, just an admission. ‘Eating, I mean.’

‘Enough?’ he pushed, examining his knuckles. They stung more than they should. Had he mis-aimed and hit him square on the slips instead of the cheek? Or did some of that childhood fat get stripped off in neglect?

Taiki did laugh this time. ‘You’re mother-henning,’ he said. ‘Did Akari rub off on you?’

Kiriha winced at the thought – though there were worse people to be compared to than Hinomoto Akari. ‘I’m more thinking about yours,’ he said honestly – a little too honestly, perhaps, but Taiki had a way of getting under his skin like that. And it was either talk or claw that expression off his face, even if Taiki was less listless and more engaged right now…

‘My parents?’ Taiki looked mystified. ‘Well, my father’s a sports coach. He’s always travelling for work. So usually it’s just my mother at home.’

Kiriha caught the tone, and the unsaid words behind them. ‘You’re not home enough, huh.’

‘…no. But I can’t just stay home and keep her company. I’m not good company like that.’

‘No, you’re not.’ Taiki would get too restless too easily, and it didn’t even matter if he was chasing after his own dreams or somebody else’s. ‘That’s probably why she doesn’t stop you.’

‘Probably.’

Kiriha sighed again. Mailbirdramon was doing a good job keeping them dry (or drier, in Taiki’s case) but it was still freezing. ‘Can we take this inside?’

Taiki shrugged. ‘I’ll stay out a little longer.’

‘Doing what?’ Kiriha snapped. ‘Sano’s gone home, you know. And besides, he goes to the community track.’

‘I was thinking,’ Taiki shot back defensively.

‘About what?’

Taiki didn’t reply.

‘Let me guess, now that we’ve got access to the digimon, you thought one of them would be able to help. Like that healer of yours: Cutemon.’

‘Did Akari mention it?’ He didn’t sound defensive anymore. Just defeated.

Kiriha undoubtedly preferred defensive to defeated. ‘It wasn’t hard to guess. But I talked with Sano, you know. And he’s disappointed in the person you’ve become – and so am I.’

Mailbirdramon called down at that point. A car had pulled up at the elementary school. Taiki’s mother, maybe. Kiriha considered that. Should he stay?

He’ll leave. He’d already said his piece, after all.


	13. stalled time (Shoutmon)

As soon as Taiki’s mother left, Akari dropped the Xros Loader off in Taiki’s room.

Shoutmon crept out. The others crowded the screen worriedly, but let him go alone. They’d learnt, over the weeks of being in the human world, that they couldn’t move around as freely as in the digital realm. There was Taiki’s mother to consider in the house and that was all, but adventitious noises raised suspicion in such a quiet abode. And at school there were too many people, too much potential for chaos… So they explored cautiously after school but stayed in the Xros Loader otherwise. Which meant they missed things. And when they slept in Taiki’s room while Taiki was still awake, they missed things as well.

They all wondered, and Shoutmon wondered most of all because he saw the most. He was always the one out of the Xros Loader in the digital world, the one by Taiki’s side. And here, he stayed up the longest of all of them… and that made sense, because he was the one who’d called to Taiki, who’d asked Taiki to take on the burden of his dream –

No. He could never call his dream a burden, even if it became exactly that for someone else.

Maybe Kiriha had a point when he said dreams were those sorts of things. Maybe Taiki had a point, too, to say it was selfish to have such dreams that saw sacrifice. Maybe Kiriha had another point in saying dreams were that sort of thing that demanded sacrifices, and that someone who didn’t dare to dream wasn’t really living.

Or maybe Kiriha was being too harsh. Someone who lived and breathed and talked and ate was most certainly alive.

‘I just don’t get it,’ Shoutmon mumbled to himself. Taiki was getting into less fights in the digital world but had more bruises, on his back and under his eyes. And now everyone was panicking about a little rain. He supposed that was another difference between the digital and human worlds.

Akari was downstairs, getting towels out of a closet, but she heard the clanging of his microphone. ‘Is everyone else wandering upstairs?’

‘No, they stayed in the Xros Loader,’ Shoutmon explained. ‘In case Taiki’s mother came home and we weren’t playing attention.’

‘Probably for the best.’ Akari bit her lip and closed the closet door, arms full. ‘Maybe you could take some food up to them? Pick sweets; that way you can just blame me.’

Shoutmon looked at her doubtfully, but obeyed. There were jam donuts that the others and Akari would enjoy.

‘Thanks,’ Akari said, as Shoutmon handed her one. She was still staring at it though, when he got back downstairs. ‘Hey, you’d probably have a better idea. How long is Taiki staying up at nights?’

‘I don’t know,’ Shoutmon admitted. ‘I just can’t stay awake that long, even with coffee.’

‘That idiot,’ Akari snapped, slapping the towels down and making Shoutmon jump. ‘Too much caffeine’s not good for the body or the mind.’

‘Really?’ Shoutmon was worried, and not just because he’d been partaking in the beverage himself. ‘What does it do to the body and mind?’

‘Uh… well…’ Akari looked as though she’d been caught off guard, twisting her fingers together. ‘Coffee has lots of caffeine in it, which keeps you awake. But it also makes your heart beat faster and your fingers and toes go cold and your hands shake and you irritable and… what else…’ She mumbled something Shoutmon didn’t catch, then added. ‘And not sleeping properly. No amount of caffeine will help that; it’s just a short-term thing. And you don’t concentrate properly or eat properly and you wind up slower overall including things like your immune system so you get sicker faster too –‘

‘Uh, Akari?’ Shoutmon interrupted her. ‘What’s an immune system?’

Akari rubbed her forehead. ‘The thing that stops you from getting sick.’ She paused. ‘Do digimon even get sick? Viruses, maybe?’

‘We do get viruses,’ Shoutmon said thoughtfully. ‘So an immune system is like a firewall?’

‘I guess.’ Akari shrugged. ‘I’m not very good with computer terms.’

The pattering of rain was suddenly even louder, and Shoutmon ducked for cover as Akari went into the hall. He could hear them though: Akari and Taiki’s mother, in the entrance, though he couldn’t make out their words in the rain.

And then he could see them as they came back, with a soaking wet Taiki with them.

.

Shoutmon finally understood what Akari had been trying to say. And he also understood that rain was different here than in the digital world. Rain carried sickness, or predisposed to sickness. And caffeine and worries and not sleeping or eating properly predisposed to sickness too.

The net result was that Taiki got sick: a fever and a foggy head and stuffy nose. And Akari was forbidden from coming over because the children had exams that were far too close to risk anyone else getting sick. So it was just Taiki’s mother… and when she rested, the digimon.

Humans really were different to digimon. They could work themselves to the bone and it wouldn’t affect their bodies, only their mind. They could worry about things and it only affected their fighting ability insofar as it affected their judgement. But human minds and bodies were more intricately connected. And their lives, here in the human world, were far more complicated than having a single missive.

‘I’m sorry, Taiki. I should’ve tried harder to understand.’

But that wasn’t all it was. Taiki had tried to shield them, too. Maybe parts of it was his own ignorance, because Shoutmon doubted he’d always offer coffee if he’d known it was bad for Shoutmon too. He didn’t feel any of that though: his heart beating (did digimon even have hearts?), or being irritable. And was Taiki irritable? No, he was more listless, if anything. Tired, though? Definitely. Not doing as much. Not being as efficient.

Taiki had been trying to function beyond his limits, but one could have only caught that if they knew where his limits were. Last time Taiki had just collapsed, and rested a bit and was back to normal, but this…

Then again, that was exertion on a battlefield. It seemed peaceful, everyday lives were far more complicated.

.

‘Sleeping involves not doing anything else,’ Shoutmon remarked. That was a common theme amongst all species, he was sure.

Taiki guiltily set down his book. ‘I can’t just sleep all day,’ he protested. But his face was still flushed which meant he still had a fever, and if Shoutmon focused on him long enough, he seemed to sway slightly, to and fro.

‘There’s a time for fighting,’ Shoutmon said thoughtfully, ‘and a time for rest. There’s a time to sleep, to eat, to laugh and to cry. There’s a time for each and every little thing we can imagine, but doing all of one thing at once just means we’ll have to bank up everything else as well. That’s what Jijimon said once.’ He shrugged. ‘Sometimes that’s a good thing. Do all your crying so you can laugh tomorrow. Fight the battle today so you can rest in peace tomorrow. But sometimes it doesn’t work. Like if you’ve got a line of enemies, and if you take out the first line, then the second will charge you, but if you don’t attack first, you’ve got some time between charges in which you can rest and regroup. Though you know this already. You’re our strategist.’

‘That’s more often Zenjirou’s strategy,’ Taiki corrected, though he did occasionally use the wait and see approach himself, particularly if they were in a defensible position and short on numbers. He wasn’t the sacrifice one’s troops in a blitz attack. That was Kiriha’s preferred method, though it wasn’t as simple as that either.

He understood that. He respected that. He was just too idealistic to ever employ that himself. And that was both good and bad.

What Shoutmon was talking about though was a different aspect to battle tactics, and life in general. ‘Some people don’t have all the time in the world,’ he tried to explain. ‘Our seniors are facing their last matches of junior high school. Some of them won’t join clubs in senior school because they’re aiming for university. And then there’s people like Tatsuya who simply won’t survive that long.’ He almost bit his tongue with the last part. He hadn’t meant to say that, ever. It just slipped out. And saying it made it just that more real.

‘The friend you haven’t spoken to since the incident?’ Shoutmon asked. ‘Are you really okay leaving things like that?’

‘I wonder why everyone’s asking me that now?’ Taiki mused. ‘You and Kiriha I can get, since we didn’t know each other before and both of you are quick to call me out… but Akari and ‘kaa-san too?’

‘I don’t know how I feel being compared to Kiriha, considering there’s not much love lost between the pair of you,’ said Shoutmon. ‘But some things are more obvious when you don’t have reserves, I guess. And you’re just stretched too thin. Doing too many things means you’re not putting your full effort towards one thing in particular, doesn’t it?’

‘Sometimes,’ he agreed. Yes, that was the case, wasn’t it? And it was also the case that he couldn’t pick one thing or another which meant he wasn’t wholly invested in one of them. In his friends, yes: Akari and Zenjirou and all the digimon…

‘The only times I’ve seen you put your foot down,’ said Shoutmon, apparently thinking along the same lines, ‘was when you thought I was being selfish, and when your friends are at risk. Because of that though, I can’t believe you would be satisfied with leaving things as they are. With Tatsuya… but also with Akari and Kiriha, and probably Zenjirou too. He’s been helping behind the scenes, you know. Those clubs you promised but couldn’t get to in the end.’

‘I shouldn’t have promised,’ Taiki said, slowly. ‘I couldn’t handle all of that, and it’s worse to promise and then pull out than not promise at all.’

‘Well, Zenjirou covered you so it was all good in the end.’ Shoutmon set his microphone down and climbed onto the bed. ‘You just need to remember your own limits and those things you really can’t compromise on.’

And there were apparently more of both than he did tend to recall.

‘What about dreams?’ Taiki asked, after a far more comfortable pause than before. ‘Do dreams have to be one of those things you can’t compromise on?’

Shoutmon thought about that. ‘I think it depends,’ he said finally. ‘I want to be the king of the digital world, but I could be happy with someone else, so long as we got peace out of it. It’s just that there’s no-one who will take those reins, so somewhere along the lines wanting peace turned into wanting to _create_ that peace. There’s still room for compromise in there, I think. If there wasn’t, I don’t think we’d have as many friends as we do.’

‘Friends,’ Taiki repeated. ‘Not just allies.’ And maybe it started the other way around for Kiriha, but he remembered the shade of Mailbirdramon above them and wondered if they’d turned into friends somewhere along the way as well.

‘Friends and allies,’ Shoutmon said. ‘You can lean on us a little more.’

‘Hindsight.’ Taiki huffed a laugh. ‘It’s much easier to see how much trouble I cause everyone after it’s all done.’

‘It’s not done,’ Shoutmon corrected. ‘You’re stuck in bed for the rest of the week, remember? And then there’s exams.’

‘And then I need to apologise to everyone, and talk with Tatsuya… and then back to the digital world.’ His words caught up with him slowly. ‘I’m sorry; I’m assuming…’

‘An extra day won’t hurt,’ Shoutmon shrugged. ‘We’ve stayed a fortnight already. But I don’t understand something.’

‘What is it?’ Taiki asked curiously. Shoutmon seemed to have adjusted to life in the human world pretty well. Then again, he’d been so occupied with other things, he hadn’t been paying all that much attention. And he should have, because who else was going to look out for the digimon especially while they were in the Xros Loader?

‘Isn’t taking care of yourself something you shouldn’t compromise too?’

…and he really didn’t know how to answer that. ‘I just… I get wrapped up in other people’s dreams, I guess. I couldn’t forgive myself that once, and since then…’

‘And now?’

And now he was worrying far more people (and digimon) than before, but as far as forgiveness went…

‘If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.’

Kiriha said Tatsuya was disappointed, but in the same way Kiriha was disappointed. That didn’t mean they were beyond forgiveness. That meant…

Kiriha has also essentially asked what he lived for. He should think about that, after avoiding it for so long.

There wasn’t much else to do while sick… except rest and study.


	14. filling in (Zenjirou)

Taiki wound up out of school until exams, and Zenjirou wondered if that was in part to give him more time to relax or if he was really that sick.

He wasn’t that sick, Akari clarified. Just that stubborn. Still. Zenjirou would feel better once he saw for himself. He figured he should tie up the loose ends Taiki has left behind first. Training with their school’s kendo club had been great for practice and Zenjirou was happy to keep doing that if they let him (and his school doesn’t mind either, considering they were knocked out in the preliminaries). The others were too much though, and he was only good at kendo anyway. He’d managed to waffle through a few days – but he wasn’t Taiki, and Taiki had clearly been balancing too much on his plate as it was.

But clearly he’d been spending too much time at Taiki and Akari’s school. People were starting to greet him in the hallways as he sought out the clubs. People were starting to greet him by name… and that was both gratifying and slightly awkward.

People were also asking him where Taiki was, because apparently he was less frightening than Akari and yet equally recognisable as Taiki’s friends. Or maybe Kiriha had been the one to paint a target on his back. The guy was hardly subtle.

Still, it was weird being so well known in a school that wasn’t his own. If he hadn’t gotten along with his own classmates and club, he might have considered transferring in. But his own school was great, and he liked having a semi-rivalry with Taiki now that he’d gotten to know him better… And maybe a part of him was glad there was a little distance, so Taiki’s perchance for helping people didn’t see Zenjirou knocked off the ladder much earlier.

For Zenjiroiu, to lose to someone who didn’t dedicate their time specifically to kendo meant he only had to train that much harder. But at one point it had felt like an insult, like someone substituting could defeat him so easily, like his own efforts paled in comparison. Now, he knew Taiki wasn’t like that. Now, he knew Taiki didn’t see things like that. Now, he knew Taiki wasn’t as perfect as all that.

Still, that had taken a bit of coming to terms with.

.

The kendo club were happy to see him back. ‘Hey! We thought you’d stop coming by with Kudou-kun out sick.’

‘Being able to practice with you all is making me stronger too,’ Zenjirou explained. ‘Really, it’s a win-win situation. And I really don’t want to lose to Taiki again.’

Though he meant that in part as a jest, he really didn’t want to lose to Taiki again. Now how he’d lost in the qualifiers last year. And not to someone like Taiki again, either, because the Digital World was so strange and unlikely a thing that it wouldn’t happen twice in a row.

He wondered why he wasn’t bitter about not being a General. Maybe it was because of Kiriha. Or maybe it was just that Kiriha (and Nene as well) dug up parts of Taiki that even Akari hadn’t known about. And, according to Akari, Zenjirou himself dug out parts of him like that.

Most of their classmates, as far as Zenjirou could tell, didn’t. Maybe that was why it was Akari and Zenjirou who’d, by some coincidence or twist of fate, wound up in the Digital World with him.

‘Can’t really help you with beating Kudou-kun,’ the captain shrugged. ‘It’s a pity he doesn’t stick with one club. His father’s a sport’s trainer, you know, and Kudou-kun’s got a great head for strategy and great instincts too. He’d be awesome no matter what sports he decided to stick with… but he just doesn’t stick with any.’

‘They don’t make him happy,’ he shrugged. ‘There’s no point dedicating yourself to one sport unless you love that sport, right?’

There were mixed reactions to that. Some did kendo because they wanted to become stronger. Some did it as a form of self-defence (which may or may not amount to the same thing). Some did it because they really wanted to make it to the top. Some were having second thoughts with looming entrance exams.

‘I mean…’ He quickly backpedalled. ‘Not that it’s necessarily what you’re going to do with the rest of your life, but being in a club’s a commitment and you’re here because, for whatever reason, you want to be. Here, specifically, as opposed to any other sport… or even any non-sport club, or the “go-home” club…’

The captain laughed. ‘We got you. Granted, there’s always the odd person following in the footsteps of their older sibling or parent who was an alumni, or something of the sort. But for the most part there’s something about kendo that’s attracted us and it’s not the same for Kudou-san. We are grateful for his assistance, though. And in bringing you here as a part of that.’

‘I’m grateful too,’ Zenjirou grinned, ‘though I was pretty pissed off when I first realised Taiki wasn’t a hard-core kendo practitioner and had still managed to knock me on my butt.’

Taiki was just that sort of complicated person that needed multiple views to pierce him together.

.

‘Zenjirou-kun?’

The captain’s voice stopped Zenjirou on his way out. The rest of the club members trickled past them, as though they sensed it wasn’t a conversation for them.

And the captain waited until they were all gone before speaking again. ‘If you don’t mind me asking… how did you become such good friends with Kudou-kun?’

‘Uhh…’ began Zenjirou ineloquently, because how was he supposed to explain the Digital World? ‘Coincidence,’ he said finally. ‘Or fate. I was just walking around stewing over my defeat and Taiki was just there, on the banks of the river with a girl like he was on a date.’

Akari was going to flatten him if she ever heard him say that, though.

‘Uhh, don’t tell Akari about that though.’

The captain laughed. ‘Don’t worry. We all know not to get on her bad side. And we captains usually catch the worst of her tirades, considering we’re the ones with the responsibility to cut practice short when our team can’t keep up.’

‘Taiki’s not exactly part of your team, though.’

‘No…’ the captain agreed. ‘And therein is the problem. He moves from one thing to the next, sometimes multiple things in a day, and I don’t think even Hinomoto-kun has a good understanding of Kudou-kun’s limits. And Kudou-kun certainly doesn’t. They try, but that’s honestly not a two-person load.’

‘That’s Taiki for you,’ Zenjirou shrugged. ‘Taking on the weight of the world.’ And that was true in a more literal sense than the captain realised. ‘But carrying that load was bound to break his back. Luckily he found the right sort of people before that happened, I think.’ And then, realilsing he’d stuck his foot in his mouth again, he hurriedly amended: ‘Not that there’s a wrong sort of person, but you know how two people just click the right way… or the wrong way, as it is.’

‘…yeah?’ The captain blinked. ‘You two don’t strike me as having clicked the wrong way though.’

‘Not us.’ And as luck would have it, Kiriha was walking up to them. ‘That’d be those two.’

The captain looked down the hall. ‘The punk kid?’

Zenjirou coughed to hide his laughter. But it was true enough, especially since Kiriha had started dressing in that dark blue jacket and fingerless gloves of it. ‘Yeah, that’s Aunoma Kiriha. And don’t ask me how they met. I don’t actually know. Still, if you want to know what sort of people just run Taiki the wrong way, he’s it.’

‘Really,’ said the captain, intrigued. ‘How is he with kendo?’

‘You know… I have no idea.’

.

Kiriha was, actually, bad at kendo but that seemed more lack of experience and muscle strength than poor instincts or ability. He certainly had the fighting instincts to lead one of the largest armies in the Digital World. As far as Zenjirou knew, he had more Code Crown pieces than Xros Heart did… if only because they prioritised the safety of their zones than collecting pieces. It didn’t matter in the end, Shoutmon explained. The major players would eventually fight for the crown and the winner would take all, so as far as Code Crown fragments go they only needed one to be in the running. But free Code Crown pieces meant war would inevitably come to their doorstep, and so they fought for the zones they found themselves in, and the friends they made (or the digimon already had) along the way.

Taiki’s army was power and friendship and good tactics. Kiriha’s was power and good tactics and a ruthlessness that Xros Heart lacked. It wasn’t necessarily wrong, in a war, but having become friends with so many digimon, Zenjirou agreed with Taiki’s approach: so long as they could fight a war with minimal casualties, they should. After all, what sort of happy utopia would Shoutmon create on a land where the only thing left was blood?

Of course, if they ever found a time their compassion would cost them, it’d probably already be too late.

‘Aren’t we hardened war veterans?’ he snorted. Luckily, the captain didn’t hear him. Kiriha did, but he was panting too hard to give any response. He had stubbornness in spades as well. Another reason why he and Taiki had the sort of relationship they did.

‘I came looking for Taiki, not a sparring match,’ he grumbled afterwards, after the captain had left.

Zenjirou shrugged. ‘You walked right into the opportunity. We were just talking about Taiki and digging him out.’

‘Digging him out,’ Kiriha repeated. ‘Guess you could put it like that. Plastic baby shovels versus pitch-forks and pick axes… and kendo swords apparently.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t have happened without you.’ Zenjirou grinned. ‘Taiki may not have liked it much, but even Akari says she’s seen more sides to Taiki in the Digital World than she had after years of knowing him.’

‘It’s hard to swallow,’ Kiriha grumbled, ‘that someone can be that strong without being wholly committed to the cause.’

‘Tell me about it.’ And Zenjirou knew exactly what Kiriha meant by that. It was what had bitten at him as well. ‘But it’s the Digital World and the people and diigmon he’s met there that’s dug all that up too, I think. He’ll find his own dream eventually. I doubt he’ll change too much otherwise, though. It’s just the intentions behind them.’

‘Intentions make a lot of difference,’ Kiriha muttered. ‘Plastic love is pretty obvious, you know. And not a pleasant thing.’

‘I don’t know,’ Zenjirou admitted. And he hoped there was nothing akin to pity in his tone because Kiriha would skin him alive.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. He only shrugged again. ‘That’s why I wanted power. At least then I wouldn’t have to depend on others: their authority, their plastic love while they plot to steal my rights from out from under my feet. In the Digital World, I wasn’t bound by laws of adulthood and inheritance and I wouldn’t have to sit back and watch my extended family, my so called guardians, take what my parents had left me and pay none of it back.’

‘They taught you how to fight a war, then.’ Zenjirou winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but they were out by then. Too late to take back.

Kiriha snorted at that. ‘They did, didn’t they? I used to be a crybaby before that, if you can believe it.’

The hallway seemed remarkably long… or maybe it was because the two of them were having a normal conversation for the first time. Perhaps it was because there was no Taiki and therefore no quarrel between Generals. Or perhaps Taiki and Kiriha would always quarrel until they found the middle ground in their rivalry.

‘Losses build character,’ Zenjirou offered. ‘But I think everyone was a crybaby at some point. A baby that doesn’t cry is just weird.’

‘If that’s how you want to look at it…’ Kiriha shrugged. ‘Why do you follow Taiki around, anyway?’

‘He grows on you,’ Zenjirou grinned. ‘Trust me, I was plenty mad the second time I met him. The first was when he beat me in a regional kendo match, by the way. And he’s not part of the kendo team.’

‘Of course he isn’t,’ Kiriha sighed. ‘That guy’s like a maid.’

‘A maid, huh…’ He could kind of see that. ‘But he genuinely wants to help people, and it’s not like he doesn’t have his priorities straight. There are people he cares for beyond others, digimon he cares for beyond others, worlds he wants to save… Just because he doesn’t have a solid dream right now, doesn’t mean he won’t find one when he’s not scared to start looking.’

‘He needs to get un-scared first,’ Kiriha grumbled. ‘That’s kind of my problem with him.’

‘Nah, your problem with him is he kicks your butt.’ And Zenjirou was surprised he was still standing after all the times he’d put his foot in his mouth that day. ‘Then again, you learn more about yourself in the process, even if you don’t necessarily like it at the time. I think… just give him a bit more time to sort out his feelings, and the two of you will be great friends.’

‘I’m not exactly looking for friends,’ Kiriha said.

‘You’re awfully chatty, then.’

‘Shut up.’

But Zenjirou thought that was more awkwardness, or maybe embarrassment, than anything else.

Kiriha really had mellowed out over the time they’d known him. And Taiki wasn’t as perfect as he’d initially seemed. It just took their interactions with others to see that.

And Zenjirou had grown after meeting both of them – and Akari – as well.

He was glad he’d met them, and gone to the Digital World. He didn’t even mind not being a General because he’d gotten a chance, and it wasn’t like he was extra baggage without a Xros Loader.

Huh, he’d already decided, apparently. And for all of Akari’s complaints and avoidances of the topic, he was sure she’d decided too. Whether for her own reasons or Taiki’s, she wasn’t going to let him leave without her. They’d be going back, once exams were over and done with. And they’d be setting the digital world free.

He wouldn’t say no to a partner if the opportunity ever came up, though.


	15. time to stand up (Akari)

Taiki didn’t often run away from challenges, but the ones he did shy away from were the ones where he had to dig deep into himself. Even after all these years, Akari didn’t quite understand it, but maybe it was because she was outspoken and brash and had four brothers and couldn’t hide much of herself if she tried.

Taiki was the opposite: an only child who, mostly, only had his mother at home with him and was very good at burying things inside and never seeing them again.

The Digital World, for good or ill, helped dig some of those things up.

And they’d made a lifelong friend in Zenjirou (and maybe Kiriha) too.

What about Nene? she wondered. Amano Nene who’d slipped in and out of the shadows, who looked like an angel but had made a deal with the devil, who was trying to save her sister and was employing every strategy in the book to do it, regardless of the costs involved…

Even Kiriha who’d thought himself ruthless had trembled in front of her tenacity. And Taiki simply couldn’t grasp her willingness to sacrifice everything else. He didn’t have just one person he’d give life and limb to protect. And Akari could understand that. She had four brothers after all – five if she included Taiki – and if someone told her to pick one, she could never do it. Parents were the same. How could a parent pick one of their many children? Taiki’s parents had it easier. There was only Taiki to choose from. But Akari’s parents had five kids. If they could only choose one… which one?

Of course, that was a slightly different scenario as to what Nene faced. It was her little sister for the world. Her little sister for the Code Crown, for the destruction of the human and digital worlds. And maybe they didn’t have any other family. No parents. No other siblings. No friends. Maybe, for Nene, the choice was that simple. It wasn’t that simple for the rest of them.

Come to think of it, she didn’t know that much about Kiriha’s life in the human world either. There was a sense of betrayal and loneliness, and Taiki and Zenjirou had picked up on both of those as well. But did he have family? Friends? He’d been after power in the digital world but power to what end?

And she wondered how things would be different when they went back. Had Kiriha taken the opportunity to address things that had been left in the air? Was he comfronting his demons? He’d certainly spent time and effort studying them, studying Taiki in particular. And Zenjirou said they’d gotten into a sparring match.

Definitely sparring, Zenjirou had affirmed, when a sceptical Akari had asked if it wasn’t a fight masquerading as a spar instead. Well, she thought to herself afterwards, he’d certainly done better than Taiki.

Though maybe, if Taiki could make it past this hurdle, he and Kiriha could get along better as well.

.

Taiki drifted between resting and studying and a heart-to-heart talk with Shoutmon. Akari left them to it.

She brought up snacks and drinks once his room was quiet.

Taiki was still awake, leafing through a textbook. Shoutmon was nowhere to be seen, so Akari assumed that meant he was in the Xros Loader, with the others. ‘Hey.’ She offered a tired grin.

Taiki mirrored it. ‘Hey. Sorry about all the trouble.’

‘You say that every time you work yourself sick,’ Akari said, exasperated. ‘But that’s the only way you learn, sometimes.’

‘I guess so.’ Taiki looked down at his textbook, then gave it up. ‘I don’t think my grades are going to be much better though, even with all this extra time to study.’

‘Thinking too much about other things?’ Akari asked. She handed a glass over and kept the other for herself.

‘Some things,’ Taiki agreed. ‘My brain doesn’t want to be sensible. Rather…’ He hesitated. ‘It’s afraid of being sensible.’

‘Meaning?’ Though she has a pretty good idea. Still, it was better if he said it.

‘I should talk to Tatsuya. I’ll keep about thinking what might be, otherwise.’

‘You took us out for Marine Day,’ Akari said quietly. ‘When we came back from the Digital World. And you challenged Zenjirou to a kendo match. He refused, because we all felt like you were trying to tie up loose ends… but the truth is you may not get another chance. We only have this because the Code Crown is in pieces. Who knows what time will do when we piece it back together. And who knows what will happen if we can’t.’

‘We will,’ said Taiki. ‘From what we’ve seen so far, the Code Crowns won’t hide quietly; someone will dig them out. And there’s us and Kiriha, and the Twilight Army and the Bagra Army… Four big groups searching them out. While it’s possible some individuals or smaller groups in the shadows, they’ll eventually get smoked out. We have Wisemon’s research ability. The others have similar things. And the spy networks as well…’

‘Spies are creepy.’ Akari shuddered. ‘It’s hard to know who to trust if you consider spies thrown into the mix.’

‘Think of every option, and then select a few,’ said Taiki, as though he was quoting someone. ‘The further you move along a specific path, the further away you move from some other paths. It’s inevitable that you can’t cover everything, in the end. It’s about using your resources the best you can, in a way you and everyone else can be satisfied with. Kiriha banks heavily on power. Nene banks heavily on information. But Xros Heart… we’ve chosen something else.’

‘Heart, of course.’ Akari grinned. ‘And how’d this turn into you comforting me again?’

‘Misdirection?’ Taiki offered, before wincing. ‘I probably shouldn’t suggest that, should I?’

‘No,’ Akari agreed, ‘but luckily for you, I don’t think it was misdirection. Still…’

‘Still…’ Taiki took a deep breath. ‘I wonder how heavy I’ve made this weight.’

‘You’ll find out after you’ve delivered it,’ Akari pointed out. ‘Really, you’re probably just too used to lugging it around. But considering what we’re going back to, you could do with a little less on your mind, right?’

‘Right, right.’ Like he really needed another reason.

He probably did. He’d piled excuse upon excuse until he hadn’t seen Tatsuya in years because of his own cowardice. And even with Akari pushing like this, even with Shoutmon pushing as well…

‘Should I give Kiriha your address? Apparently he was hounding Zenjirou after school today.’

Taiki grimaced at the thought. ‘No thanks.’ His mother would give KIriha all the fuel he needed against Xros Heart, as mothers did, but aside from that… they weren’t friends. Not yet. Not really. And his home was his home. There was still a barrier there.

Home was where friends came to visit, not rivals, after all. Maybe one day…

‘Hey, you and Zenjirou have been getting along better with Kiriha, haven’t you?’ Maybe it was because he wasn’t there, and the bits that vexed them about each other weren’t in play as well…

‘I hound him the same way I hound you,’ Akari shrugged. ‘He takes it about the same way too, to be honest. You two aren’t so different.’

‘Probably why we don’t get along.’ Taiki sighed, before shuffling out of bed. His head spun a little, but the cool drink Akari had brought up with her helped with that. And no doubt some fresh hair would help as well.

‘Aren’t birds of a feather supposed to flock together?’ Akari wondered.

‘Opposites attract,’ Taiki countered. ‘Really, to each their own but in our case, we highlight our own flaws and each others’ too well, for now. And we both know it, too. One day, when we’ve settled our own demons and mellowed out a bit…’

Akari snorted at that. ‘Most people think you’re too mellow, you know?’

‘Most people as in not my mother nor none of the digimon nor you nor Zenjirou nor Kiriha… and probably not Nene either.’

And Akari couldn’t argue that point, because it was true.

.

The fresh air did feel lovely, after having stayed in bed for most of the last few days. It would have wrecked havoc on his throat but luckily his mother had the foresight to force a mask and scarf on him, so he looked a bit ridiculous but felt quite comfortable overall.

Akari was with him, which was comforting too. So was Shoutmon and the other digimon, in the Xros Loader. Even if this was something he had to do himself. Even if he had to lead the way. They were there and their presence was comforting.

‘I feel like I’m marching off to war.’ Taiki huffed a laugh, almost forced… but it was kind of a battle, wasn’t it? Something he’d avoided even after throwing himself into real battles in the Digital World, against digimon that could have torn him apart. And it wasn’t that he was unnecessarily restless. It wasn’t like he wanted to fight until someone defeated him, or carelessly waste his life without having accomplished anything for himself.

Kiriha had said it, multiple times, that denying his own dreams for others was egotistical and he’d said it right back, that denying others their dreams for his own was egotistical as well. And they were both wrong and both right. Taiki just couldn’t let himself settle on a dream because all dreams meant sacrifice and maybe it wasn’t even all guilt but plain old fear saying Tatsuya had sacrificed too much for a dream that was near impossible, now, to come true.

The track was still soggy but the bleachers were dry and there were a few people there. All adults. And only two people on the track.

Akari gave him a light push. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait over there for you.’ She waved towards the crowd at the bleachers, and then she was gone and taking the Xros Loader with her.


	16. well of regrets (Tatsuya)

Taiki suddenly felt exposed, especially when Akari’s wave attracted the crowd of adults. They pointed at him, then at the pair at the track, and Taiki didn’t doubt at all their attention had been grabbed.

Probably on purpose, because that attention was like a tether that would keep him there.

.

Tatsuya saw instantly that something had changed. The track tended to be quite quiet when they used it, but there were occasionally others there doing their own thing. That was fine and it was pretty easy to ignore them and be ignored in return. The harder thing was the spectators that sometimes showed up, but they thought whatever they thought and watched whatever they watched and at some point wandered off and never really spoke to him and that was okay as well. And then there the few who would hang around. Old classmates who wanted to catch up and that was always the most awkward, because there was a mix of awe and pity and neither of those belonged on the face or in the voice of an old classmate. And then there were complete strangers who were sometimes well meaning, sometimes nice and sometimes satisfying their own curiosity.

But Tatsuya wanted to run again and that all came with it.

And then there was Kiriha Aunoma who’d been interesting. He’d reminded him a bit of Taiki, and he’d known Taiki as well: he’d asked about him. And maybe Tatsuya had been a little harsh but he’d been reminded, again, that he hadn’t seen or heard from Taiki since their elementary school days and even though he knew the reason behind that, even though Taiki’s little gestures reached him, the distance had still hurt as much as his legs unable to move had hurt. But he’d had an inkling that Taiki would sometimes show up on the track with the other spectators, nameless and faceless and vanishing with the crowd and Tatsuya had never looked, never wanted to look, for his own reasons, and so he’d never looked.

He wondered what it was that made Kiriha disappointed in Taiki? He wondered what sort of relationship they shared together. Not friends, he thought. Not enemies either. Rivals, maybe? Or maybe he looked up to Taiki as well, except for this one flaw.

And he wondered what Kiriha had been thinking about, asking those questions. A corporate takeover from step-siblings. A wistful look behind hardened eyes. He wondered if that was as specific an example as it sounded like: had his parents’ company been taken over by step-siblings and he’d been left unjustly with nothing? Or maybe it was just hypothetical… but Tatsuya didn’t think so. He’d spent a lot of time around other patients: in hospital, in rehab, in programmes like this… He’d gotten good at reading people.

And maybe he could have taken the initiative himself and gone to Taiki, but he looked up to him and that made it harder. That meant shattering that image with his own hands instead of waiting and hoping that, one day, Taiki would come himself and he’d be able to patch it all together.

Well, Taiki was here now. Standing at the edge of the pitch, looking at the stands but oh so very tense, like he knew whose eyes were boring into his shoulder blades.

Then he took a deep, shuddering breath and turned around.

And Tatsuya could only stare at him, because Taiki looked so different than the last time he’d gotten a good look at him, and it wasn’t just the mask and the scarf.

‘Shall I leave you two alone for a bit?’ his physiotherapist asked.

‘Please,’ Tatsuya replied. But that only made things more awkward when he and Taiki stared at each other with no-one on either side to buffer them.

Then Taiki took another deep breath and waved awkwardly.

Tatsuya wanted to face-palm but his own heart was pattering away now. It was easy to think things while alone, to say things to other people… and a totally different matter when Taiki was right there. He raised his arm and gave a little floppy wave as well.

Taiki’s shoulders relaxed a bit and he made his way over. And stopped a little short of Tatsuya’s wheelchair. ‘I-‘ His voice was croaky, as though he had a cold.

He waited for years and couldn’t wait through a cold?

Then Taiki bowed suddenly, almost hitting his head on the wheelchair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he burst out… and just like that, the words came out like a flood. ‘I shouldn’t have avoided you like that! I was so sure it was my fault, that you blamed me, that I wound up undermining your own dream and determination for it.’

And Tatsuya was surprised, because after all this time, he was so sure Taiki didn’t get it, wouldn’t get it…

Tatsuya stood up. He could do that for short periods of time now but even if he couldn’t, it was worth the look on Taiki’s face. ‘I’m fine, see?’ he said. ‘I can walk a bit. One day, I’ll run as well. And medicine’s advancing. They might find a cure before I turn twenty. And even if they don’t, they might find something to make us live longer, and then find a cure down the road. Look at the cystic fibrosis kids, after all. Used to be a death sentence. Now a good many of them can live as long as us.’

Taiki blinked at him, then he shook his head and smiled. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said honestly. ‘I know sports and apparently war strategies, but not so much about medicine.’

Tatsuya sat back down again. He still had walking to do, after all. ‘You pick it up,’ he replied. Just as Taiki had picked up the sports knowledge from his father. ‘Taiki… if you knew, why didn’t you come sooner?’

‘I didn’t know.’ Taiki’s cheeks flushed behind the mask. ‘It took… a lot happening before I figured it out, and then it was a matter of facing something I’d been avoiding all these years… which I haven’t really faced.’

‘Your own dream?’ Tatsuya asked.

Taiki blinked in surprise.

‘It’s not hard to guess.’ Tatsuya shrugged. ‘Sure, we never went and saw each other, but you’re pretty popular. People talk about you. Including this guy I’d never met before called Kiriha…’

‘You’ve talked with Kiriha?’ Taiki sounded surprised at that.

‘A bit.’ Tatsuya shrugged. ‘Something about a corporate takeover… and about you.’

‘Of course. Kiriha and I are… rivals, I suppose.’

Rivals. So he had guessed right.

‘He sounded like he didn’t want to be impressed with you,’ Tatsuya explained. ‘Like how you think of your idols with a single glaring flaw.’ His own cheeks grew pink at that. ‘I was all ready to yell at you, you know. All those years ago. Because I was sure you’d blame yourself because that was the kind of person you were, but you’re also brave and strong so I was sure you’d have come and visited me, or found me after I got out. But you didn’t. Instead you actively avoided me and I wondered for a while if it was out of malice because you quit the track team too… but you didn’t want to run like I did. You just happened to be good at it, good at most sports. And then I heard about you, how you’d help out all the sports teams but never stay with anyone, and I wondered if I’d destroyed something for you.’

‘I was the one who destroyed something,’ said Taiki, looking into his scarf. ‘I thought that if I hadn’t told you that when we tried out for the track team, you wouldn’t have fallen in love with running and you wouldn’t have wound up in a wheelchair. But now I know. You come back here, even now. You want to run, even now. It was a dream worth falling for, and if you can say it was worth the price, then who is anyone else to say otherwise?’

‘Taiki…’ Tatsuya closed his eyes, because that painted him in too selfless a picture.

‘And yet…’ Taiki continued. ‘No dream is really by itself. There’s still your parents. The doctors. Your classmates at the time…’

‘You,’ Tatsuya continued. ‘Right. It’s not a dream that only affects me and it’s not a price I paid that only affects me, but I still don’t regret it because, as you said, it was worth falling in love with.’ He opened his eyes again and smiled. ‘You’ll find a dream like that too, one day. Or many dreams. Who said we got one dream only?’

‘Who said?’ Taiki repeated, with a smile of his own crinkling through his mask. He made a move as though to sit on the grass, but caught himself. ‘I thought all sorts of things. That you hated me. That you blamed me. That you were going to yell at me and say you never wanted to see me again and then that’d be that. That seeing me would only hurt because it’d remind you that you couldn’t run with us on the track anymore. That seeing you would make me feel guilty and powerless and that’s why I started helping out all the sports teams but really, that only meant I was the one pushing myself instead. I was lucky, though. I’ve been lucky. I get dizzy a lot. Anaemic sometimes.  Sometimes my electrolytes go out of whack but ‘kaa-san watches out for that and Akari’s always carrying drinks and a pillow and because I had them watching over me, I was careless. And then it was suddenly more than just helping the sports teams. Suddenly lives were at stake and everyone was depending on me and I could only fight the way I knew how, saving everyone without sacrificing anyone along the way. And Kiriha’s the total opposite. Or was. Seemed like he was. He’d sacrifice all his pieces on the board so long as his king won… but that’s not quite true, and if I need to sacrifice a piece I can, depending on the piece, even though it hurts and I don’t want to at all…’

‘But some pieces are more important than others. Some things are non-negotiable.’ Tatsuya nodded. ‘I wondered, you know, what sort of dream you’d wind up having. You were and still are a jack of all trades but something will click one day and you won’t want to leave, but even in the meantime there’s a hierarchy of things and you still follow it. Like Akari-san, right?’

‘What about Akari?’ Taiki asked, thrown by the sudden change in conversation.

Tatsuya waved towards the stands. ‘You’re walking around with her wrapped in a scarf and face mask,’ he said. ‘And it’s well after school on a school day.’

‘It is,’ Taiki admitted. ‘She’s… my moral support. And a close friend. She looks out for me. Says she does it so I can look out for the rest of the world. And Zenjirou covers me and Kiriha pushes me forward. I’m really lucky to have all of them.’

‘You are,’ Tatsuya agreed. ‘But I think I stopped being jealous of you when I realised you haven’t found a dream to bodily throw yourself into yet. You’ll shine brightly when you do.’

And in the far more comfortable silence that followed, Tatsuya added. ‘I was going to yell at you, you know, but you managed to hit the nail right on the head.’

‘With a _lot_ of help,’ Taiki protested. ‘I tried to get you magically healed, you know.’

That made no sense to Tatsuya at all, but some things were just like that.

‘I guess that just makes the cure more valuable, when they find it. I wonder how much less things would weigh, if they were gone with the wave of a wand.’

‘Magic isn’t omnipresent anyway,’ Taiki sighed. ‘Sometimes you can see overwhelming power and forget that, but it’s not. We’ve lost enemies and friends. We’ve lost places: homes, sometimes entire zones, and the zone’s Code Crown can’t return them. I wonder what limits whole Code Crown will have as well…’ He shook his head. ‘I must sound like I’m talking nonsense.’

‘A little.’ Tatsuya smiled. ‘It sounds important to you, though.’

‘It is. It’s the dream of another close friend.’ Taiki sounded like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. There was probably a lot more to the story, Tatsuya mused. Things that he didn’t want to say. Things maybe he couldn’t say. Or maybe there was a barrier that time still needed to fix… but it didn’t really feel like that. More like something he needed to experience for himself to grasp.

‘I was waiting,’ Tatsuya admitted. ‘I could have visited you too, because I knew for the most part you’d be blaming yourself, but I didn’t, even when I was okay facing the track again. I didn’t want to be the one to take that step, because that meant taking you down from that pedestal I’d set you on.’

‘We’re friends,’ Taiki protested. ‘Nobody should be on a pedestal.’ He paused, then added, ‘and neither of should have let so much time pass by, either. But we did.’

‘We are friends,’ Tatsuya smiled. ‘Friends have rough spots sometimes too. And they grow from it. We’ve both grown, right?’

‘…yeah, that’s right. We have grown. And that’s another thing that doesn’t come free.’

‘It doesn’t.’


	17. rivalry revival (Kiriha)

Kiriha saw them, Taiki and Akari, entering the track so he bypassed it and wandered aimlessly instead. MailBirdramon kept a bird’s eye view out. MetalGreymon crowded his apartment because he had nothing better to do. The others did their own thing. Researching. Doing surveillance. Because even though there were only two Code Crowns that could return them to the human world, Wizarmon claimed to have been there before so there must be another way somewhere, and that meant there could be enemies.

Or maybe he just wanted an enemy because it was all good and well for Taiki and his team, but Kiriha had mostly just relaxed and twiddled his thumbs until he couldn’t bear either of those anymore. Maybe he could have gone back to school, or taken the time to study. Or maybe Xros Heart shouldn’t have been so sure nothing would get in the way of their exams. That was naïve, or maybe wistful thinking. Or maybe they had simply forgotten that Taiki had received his Xros Loader in the human world, and that meant there’d already been a passage open, independent of the two Code Crown pieces they held.

Which was unlike Taiki, but then again, Taiki had been dealing with two non-General humans and one of them had been pretty vocal, initially, about going home.

‘Hey.’

And there she was now. ‘Weren’t you babysitting Taiki?’ he muttered, turning to face her.

Akari grinned at him in reply. She didn’t really grin like that in the Digital World, he mused. Maybe it was the Xros Loader that made the difference. Or maybe it was just them, the people who’d been selected as Generals, that were different. Hinamoto Akari and Zenjirou Tsurugi were both tagalongs, after all: just in the right place and the right time and dragged into a life-altering adventure.

‘Taiki’s got it,’ Akari replied. ‘And you? Were you worried too? How’d you even know we’d be here?’

‘Good guess,’ Kiriha muttered. ‘Not hard to tell how sick he got from standing around like an idiot in the rain, and how long he could stand to sit still, especially with enablers like you involved.’

‘Guess that’s true,’ Akari sighed. ‘I do enable him, and that’s why a different side to him came out when he met you, because you don’t. But in the end, people need all sorts, right? People who support, who push, who enable, who downright repel… Does Taiki push you?’

‘Taiki’s not the only one,’ Kiriha muttered, which was as good as an admission, but he’d thrown the bait as well and Akari bit.

‘Like Nene?’ she asked. ‘You’ve sparred with Zenjirou too, haven’t you?’

‘Sure, if you call it a spar.’ He had experience in fighting wars and businesses but not kendo clubs. ‘And here’s you who likes to have all these chats too, dragging things into the open.’

‘Well, of course.’ She grinned again. ‘I have four younger brothers, you know. You have to be good at tearing things out of them, like who broke the glass vase in the entrance way or who stole last slice of cake and all.’

‘Silly things like that…’ And maybe there was something wanderoos in his tone because Akari’s smile softened. ‘Stepsiblings are different, I guess.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ she confessed, ‘but they’re your stepsiblings. You know best.’

‘I guess.’ He left it there. There was no need to go into the whole tale and he didn’t even want to. It wasn’t like they were friends. It wasn’t like they would ever be friends. Their only association was the Digital World, was Xros Heart, was Taiki… ‘You going back to the digital world?’

‘I am,’ Akari nodded. ‘Aside from the fact that someone needs to keep an eye on Taiki, I made friends there too. Precious friends I want to protect.’

‘Friends.’ Kiriha snorted, but he couldn’t really deny that himself. He’d collected his army like powerful tools but somewhere along the line, they’d become a little closer than that. Breakdramon chose him because of his “love”, whatever he meant by that. MetalGreymon chose him back when he had no proof of his own prowess, when he needed something, anything, to become the seed of his Blue Flare army. Dracomon picked him because he was courageous. And they went out of their way, sometimes, to do unnecessary things. Like how Mailbirdramon played the umbrella so Kiriha could wander around unburdened with it… as though he’d had anything better to do with his hands. But in the digital world, they’d find food, find places to sleep, keep watch and it wasn’t just about power because power could see him slaughtered in his sleep but he was still alive and in one piece. That was friendship, wasn’t it: trust, and doing things without a hierarchy of power or a cost or expectation attached.

‘Hmm…’ Akari looked as though she wanted to comment, but didn’t. ‘Anyway, at first all I wanted was to get back to our world. The Digital World was scary, and I was just some random human who happened to be standing too close to Taiki when he got his Xros Loader and wound up sucked into this adventure. Zenjirou took it better. He was excited to be in an adventure. A little bitter at first, perhaps, to be bested by Taiki again but then Lake Zone happened. For both of us, that was a turning point.’

‘Lake Zone,’ Kirha repeated, because he hadn’t had very much to do with that place. He’d offered help. Taiki had rejected it because the price was too steep. They’d gone on their merry way. ‘Taiki didn’t handle it?’

‘He did, kind of,’ Akari replied. ‘You know how Taiki’s prone to overworking himself, right? Does everything himself so everyone else faces a minimum amount of burden. Well, he’d passed out after coming up with a defensive strategy, so it fell to us to actually play that strategy out. So Zenjirou handled mobilising the troops and keeping the defence up until Taiki was up and moving again, and Bastemon swooped in and took care of Taiki and suddenly my one and only role in that was gone. So… hey, I’m not bearing my heart to you!’

‘Didn’t ask you to,’ Kiriha shrugged. ‘Really, I asked a yes or no question.’

‘True, you did.’ Akari laughed. ‘Oh well. It’s embarrassing but a turning point so I may as well say it. I was really homesick then, and Lilithmon used that. But I love my friends and that won out in the end and so we kept the Code Crown. But Lilithmon playing around with my thoughts like that also helped strengthen my resolve. I had friends, Taiki from before and Zenjirou and all the digimon now, and by staying with them I’d made a commitment to do my best in protecting them as well. And watching over Taiki isn’t all I’m capable of. I’ve played shooting games, for example. That came in handy once.’

‘Making up for lack of raw strength with creativity.’ Kiriha shook his head. ‘You’re not going to punch me for that, are you?’

‘I might,’ she replied, ‘if you give me a reason in the future to. But you’re not comparing me to other humans so that’s fine. You wouldn’t go punch an Ultimate digimon like Neptnemon, would you?’

He wasn’t that suicidal. And really, they all made up their lack of physical power by creatively manning their troops. That was the role of the Generals. Him and Taiki and Nene, all in the struggle to collect the Code Crown.

‘Hey, Kiriha… what are you going to do with the Code Crown?’

Kiriha shrugged. ‘I’m fighting for power,’ he said. ‘I’m making myself stronger and digimon are inspired by strength, but none of them are really the leading type. Maybe they’ll duke it out and I’ll give it to the winner. Or maybe there’ll be a leader I’ll get behind too. Or maybe there’s someone who was taken off their throne. Someone who should be leading, who was before the Code Crown was shattered. Then I’ll give it back to them.’

‘There wasn’t,’ said Akari immediately. ‘It was anarchy before the zones split. The Code Crown was basically a no-man’s land. Digimon attempted to claim the Code Crown but they always failed. Apparently the Code Crown was split in order to get around that lock.’

‘Interesting,’ Kiriha hummed. ‘Your source?’

‘Ask Wisemon or Wizarmon,’ Akari replied. ‘Really, our sources and yours should compare notes at some point. Wisemon in particular loves exploring the mysteries of the Digital World.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ because it would be useful, and in the near future he would need to decide what he’d do with the Code Crown.

‘Would you consider giving it to Shoutmon?’ she asked.

‘…maybe,’ he replied eventually, ‘if he and Taiki ever got their acts together.’

Which they were, he had to admit, but he was going to be stubborn till the end in regards to them and they were going to be the same regarding him, because they were rivals.

‘I’ll be waiting on the next battlefield for that,’ he said, ‘for when he’s grown, and I’ve grown as well, and we’ll see if we’re at the point where we’ve crossed beyond mere rivals into something else.’

‘Into friends?’ she asked.

Maybe. Probably. But that hadn’t been proven yet so they’d have to see, either in this world or the Digital one, either in what was left of their impromptu vacation or when they dove back into the fight for the Code Crown.


	18. new countdown (Shoutmon)

Being moral support was surprisingly boring, Shoutmon noted. Taiki’s role as moral support involved far more strategizing and far more danger. He couldn’t hear a thing for a bit, and then all he could hear was Akari talking to Kiriha.

He’d barely even gotten a good look at Sano Tatsuya!

And that wouldn’t do so he begged Wizarmon for a quick illusion and slipped back into the stands like a human boy. And it was a pretty good illusion, he had to admit. Wizarmon had kept his headphones which was nice of him, and the red and yellow colour scheme. His face looked quite a bit sharper than Taiki’s and hair was weird (but all hair was weird; it was a human thing and simply couldn’t’ be helped). And walking looked slightly weird but felt exactly the same as it always did. Probably because he hadn’t fundamentally changed, like when he digi-xrossed or digivolved. He just looked different on the outside. Enough to fool anyone who caught a glimpse of him.

He wondered if he’d fool Taiki and Akari too. Hopefully not. Taiki knew him so well by now, and he’d learnt loads more about Taiki since coming to the human world as well. Like human foods didn’t really affect digimon in different ways like they did humans. Like coffee gave quick bursts of energy, kept people awake but then made them more tired afterwards, lowered their immunity to viruses and other stuff. Like orange juice was sort of the opposite: it didn’t make people sleepy (especially when chilled) but there was something called vitamin C in it that boosted the immune system. And warm milk made people sleepy. And some tablets for colds. And colds didn’t mean icy terrain and temperatures but sniffles and coughs that digimon didn’t get and fevers they only sometimes did and for very different reasons. And how overworking manifested in more than just inattention and sluggish movements: it manifested in physical signs like bags under the eyes and bruises in parts of the body.

He knew better what to look for now. He also knew better how Taiki thought, how he worked… He’d always known Taiki wasn’t the type to sacrifice anyone, that he’d make his strategies as best he could so everyone would walk away at the end of it and that was why he wanted Taiki’s help to make him King, because he wanted to give the Digital World that same kind of ruler. And it was why Taiki had refused him at first, because Shoutmon hadn’t explained himself or proven himself: he’d simply asked, and been rejected, and learnt his lesson and pitched his claim better the next time.

He still didn’t the human world, per say. It wasn’t his home and there was no war over their shoulders. It felt strange to be so relaxed. It made him wonder if they were dulling their reflexes but relaxation was good too. They were from the Village of Smiles, after all. They knew its value. And they’d taken the opportunity to relax in the Xros Loader and, when it was quiet, outside as well. They’d sampled different foods Taiki and Akari had brought them. They’d explored a school much more detailed than their own and read things that made very little sense to them. They’d learnt things about humans they hadn’t known before and that was perhaps the most important thing, because they had human companions and they needed to know as much as possible about them, just as the humans learnt about the digimon.

The hardest thing, perhaps, was learning about the normal human lives they’d taken the children from. School and home and extracurricular sports and jobs and exams… and it was a flurry of activity that, after the world, they’d find in the Digital World as well, but for now seemed so foreign. When was the Village of Smiles destroyed? It felt like so long ago. When had the children come from the human world? It had to be that long ago.

They hadn’t really gotten it, had they? Why they’d wanted so badly to go back, at first? Why they’d been reluctant to get involved? But they’d become friends and become invested and stayed on to help them and now they were planning to go back to the Digital World to help them again…

But at least they were relaxing in the human world as well, and they were offloading some of their burdens: burdens they’d known about and hadn’t, old ones and new ones, simple things like eating on Marine Day to complicated things like dealing with a broken friendship which may not be that broken after all.

Neither Taiki nor Tatsuya yelled. They smiled sometimes. Tatsuya stood up, then sat back down, and hadn’t Taiki said his legs were ruined beyond repair? Or was it his inherent code that was ruined beyond repair, and he’d somehow managed to shuffle around the rest of his code to make up for it. Humans weren’t like digimon and it wasn’t easy to reprogramme them, but apparently it was possible to some extent or else Tatsuya wouldn’t have stood up like that. He’d ask Taiki about it afterwards but at the moment he looked too surprised.

And he didn’t want to interrupt anyway. So he watched them talk. Watched as, finally, they turned to go their separate ways with tiny relieved smiles on their faces… and then Shoutmon couldn’t wait anymore. He ran onto the tracks and hugged Taiki around the middle. ‘How did it go?’

‘Shoutmon?’ Taiki blinked, but managed to school his expression into something that wasn’t undiluted shock.

Maybe he should have warned Taiki first.

‘You’re… Shoutmon?’ Tatsuya parroted. ‘That’s a strange name.’

Shoutmon laughed awkwardly. How to explain digimon names without the digimon part? ‘Uhh…’

‘He’s foreign,’ Taiki said hurriedly. ‘Only here for a brief visit.’

‘You’ve got good Japanese,’ said Tatsuya appreciatively. ‘Sounds like there’s quite a story as to how you two met but I won’t ask right now. Still, thank you for being there for Taiki.’

‘Taiki’s the one who’s there for me,’ Shoutmon grinned. ‘Helps me out of tight spots like you wouldn’t believe.’ And that was true. Taiki had tried explaining to his mother that first night, and it hadn’t gone over well. ‘It’s because of him that I can fight for my dream.’

‘It’s because of him I found a dream to fight for.’ Tatsuya smiled. ‘If he finds a dream while with you, you let me know, okay?’

‘Sure!’ He had no idea how he was going to pull that off (maybe Wisemon would help?) but he would. Tatsuya was important to Taiki, just as Akari and Zenjirou and Kiriha were: another person who’d shaped the person he became.

.

Later, the three of them walked back to Taiki’s home: Taiki, Akari and Shoutmon who was still dressed in his illusion. Taiki was still wrapped in warm layers and his mask and scarf, but he seemed to be moving more easily, more freely.

It really was a heavy load, he reflected, that the difference was so obvious now that it was gone. He wondered how their battles would change from it: from Taiki and Kiriha and the changes in their relationship, and the way Akari and Zenjirou had changed as well, and even the digimon, upon visiting the human world. He wondered how Nene would have been if she’d come as well, if she _could_ have come as well…

He wondered what the next battlefield wound look like, when Twilight and Blue Flare met Xros Heart once again. And the Bagra army… They didn’t understand humans like those digimon who were a part of the other armies, the armies with human Generals. What differences would they see? What different strategies would they be able to employ? And how would the humans be, themselves? Homesick a second time, or more at peace in a world so far away from home?

They’d find out soon enough, so until then was recovery and rest (and, for their human friends, exams).

 


End file.
